The Financial Supervisory Commission yesterday imposed penalties on 12 certified public accountants for negligence in certifying financial documents of several companies hit by corporate scandals.
The accountants are held responsible for irregularities at such companies as Procomp Informatics Co (
"In order to maintain order in the market, all accountants will definitely be held responsible for their duties in conducting due diligence checks into the finances of listed companies," commission vice chairman Lu Daung-yen (
According to Wu Tang-chieh (吳當傑), head of the commission's securities and futures bureau, Hsu Chun-chen (徐俊成) and Chao Chi-hao (趙志浩) of Lan Jai Certified Public Accountants (聯捷會計), who failed to thoroughly review High Tech Computer's finances, are suspended from certifying listed companies' financial reports for two years, beginning in January.
Two other accountants for High Tech Computer, Liu Yi-chi (
Another two KPMG accountants, Tsai Tien-yuan (
Also, two other KPMG accountants, Yu Chi-lung (余紀隆) and Liu Chin-tong (柳金堂), were given a warning for failing to collect sufficient evidence to support their endorsement of Summit Computer's financial records.
Also found negligent in certifying Summit Computer's finances were Kao Tsung-ming (郭宗銘) and Chen Shen-fa (陳順發) from PricewaterhouseCoopers Taiwan (資誠會計). The two were given a three-month suspension, starting January.
A warning was given to Wang Chin-lai (
The commission yesterday also revoked President Securities Investment Trust Co's (
The company was found to have published advertisements in newspapers that exaggerated the performance of an unspecified company's overseas re-investment, which the company denied, so as to attract investments from investors, according to Wu.
The trust company's president, Wang Tong (王瞳) was also suspended from practicing business for three months due to similar misconduct when presenting his analysis of the company's shares while hosting a TV program.
"No equity analysts can predict share prices of a company without solid research to support their analysis," Wu said.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained