Prosecutor to work with FSC to boost convictions

In an attempt to boost its crime-fighting capability, the Financial Supervisory Commission announced yesterday that it will boost its ties with the Ministry of Justice by having a prosecutor stationed at the commission.

The commission hopes to work with prosecutors in the gathering and preserving evidence as it investigates financial crimes, increasing the odds of convictions, commission Chairman Kong Jaw-sheng (龔照勝) told a press conference yesterday.

Minister of Justice Morley Shih (施茂林) also attended the press conference.

The commission hopes the prosecutor will help it pursue insider trading and embezzlement cases, and maintain the stability in the financial market, Kong said.

The commission said its statistics showed that it submitted 407 cases of alleged financial offenses to the prosecutors between 1998 and February. Only 189 of the cases made it to court, however, and just 63 resulted in convictions, a very low conviction ratio, the commission said.

Hsu Yong-chin (許永欽) from the Taipei District Prosecutor"s Office will be the first prosecutor assigned to the commission.

Hsu has expertise in fair trade and economic crimes and has participated in the investigation of a number of financial offenses.

He recently worked on a probe of alleged vulture funds involvement in several insider-trading cases.

Vulture funds are investment funds that buy a company's or a country's debt at low prices and then quickly sell it for a profit.

The stock market has been haunted by a series of financial crimes since the middle of last year, including Procomp Informatics Co (博達科技), Summit Computer Technology Co (皇統科技), Infodisc Technology Co (訊碟科技) and the recent China Life Insurance Co (中國人壽).

However, the disappearance of Infodisc Technology founder and former chairman David Lu (呂學仁) earlier this month has sparked criticism about the prosecutors' loose surveillance of defendants and suspects in financial cases.

"We will endeavor to prevent defendants on trial from fleeing the country in three ways," Shih (施茂林) said yesterday.

First, the prosecutors will seek to gather enough evidence to get the court to order defendants held in custody, Shih said.

Second, the ministry will demand prosecutors watch for unusual behavior by defendants during the trial process, he said.

Third, defendants who are found guilty will be arrested and jailed as soon as they are convicted, he said.