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Chairman caused bank's failure, ministry claims

The Ministry of Finance yesterday lashed out at former Chung Shing Commercial Bank (中興銀行) chairman Wang Yu-yun (王玉雲), labeling him the cause of the bank's failure.

"Wang and his 145-person staff, who have been indicted, should be held fully responsible for the bank's bad loans of over NT$80 billion," Gary Tseng (曾國烈), the director-general of the Bureau of Monetary Affairs, said at a press conference.

Tseng said that Wang ganged up with several conglomerates and with his crony Huang Tsung-hung (黃宗宏), former chairman of the Taiwan Pineapple Group (台鳳集團), that defaulted by as much as NT$15 billion on the bank's loans, triggering a massive moral hazard within the bank and a bank-run in late June 1989.

"The bank's impaired reputation led to further losses as a result of rising bad loans and a liquidity crunch after clients withdrew up to NT$80 billion from their saving accounts," Tseng said.

According to Tseng, Wang is expected to be found guilty of inappropriately funneling over NT$50 billion in loans to 42 conglomerates and granting a one-off loan of NT$350 million to Taiwan Pineapple, without respecting either due process or the bank's credit policies.

Despite the government's initiatives to impose heavier penalties on white-collar criminals, prosecutors recommended jail terms of only seven to 10 years for Wang and Huang respectively.

"Unfortunately, the new law revisions, which are still under review, may not apply to these culprits," Tseng said.

The court furthermore succeeded in confiscating properties worth only NT$300 million from Wang, which is meager compared to the bank's liabilities of NT$55 billion.

Besides a criminal verdict that is to be handed down in the near future, Wang may also face civil lawsuits filed by the government to compensate for the bank's losses, Tseng said.

But as Wang has already transferred most of his assets and properties to China and other countries, Tseng admitted that the authorities would have great difficulty to redeem the loss from Wang.

Meanwhile, Tseng said the government's role as the bank's custodian since 1989 was to prevent more moral hazards instead of making managerial decisions to turn around the bank's financial condition.

"The bank is incurring a loss of NT$150 million a month, which taxpayers have to settle," he said.
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