Despite demands to the contrary by Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers, the Cabinet-level Financial Supervisory Commission appears to have no immediate plans to suspend its Examination Bureau director-general, Lee Chin-chen (李進誠), on the strength of allegations of illegal insider trading on the stock market.
"There exists only one truth," the commission's vice-chairman Lu Daung-yen (呂東英) told the Taipei Times yesterday.
"We will disclose the facts about the case that the commission has acquired tomorrow [today] and issue a response to the legislators' demands," he said.
However, he declined to confirm if the "facts" to be revealed relate to the prosecutors' possible involvement in the illegal-trading case, which the commission alleged last week. He also remained tight-lipped about whether the commission would suspend Lee.
Lu's remarks came after DPP legislators Charles Chiang (江昭儀) and Hsieh Ming-yuan (謝明源) yesterday asked the commission's chairman, Kong Jaw-sheng (龔照勝), to remove Lee from his position as director general for his suspected illegal trading in Power Quotient International Co (勁永國際) shares.
Chiang said Kong should remove Lee from his position to avoid him abusing his power and hindering the investigation process, the Central News Agency reported yesterday. Kong last week said he believed Lee was innocent.
Lee's office has the power to investigate irregularities in the financial markets. But the Black Gold Investigation Center of the Taiwan High Court Prosecutors' Office claimed last week that they had found concrete evidence that strongly suggested Lee's likely involvement in the illegal trading of Power Quotient stocks. This was a huge blow to the financial watchdog, on the eve of its first anniversary celebrations.
The evidence included a note -- in Lee's handwriting, according to the center -- to the prime suspect, Lin Ming-da (
The prosecutors' claims infuriated the commission and led to intensifying in-fighting between the two government agencies. The commission on Friday decided to form its own investigating task force, while accusing some of the prosecutors of possible involvement in the scandal.
The commission's task force will investigate employees of the Taiwan Stock Exchange Corp, the Securities and Futures Bureau, the Financial Examination Bureau, prosecutors and investigators, as well as their close relatives, to determine whether they were engaged in illegally trading in Power Quotient shares, the commission said.
Shares of contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) came under pressure yesterday after a report that Apple Inc is looking to shift some orders from the Taiwanese company to Intel Corp. TSMC shares fell NT$55, or 2.4 percent, to close at NT$2,235 on the local main board, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed. Despite the losses, TSMC is expected to continue to benefit from sound fundamentals, as it maintains a lead over its peers in high-end process development, analysts said. “The selling was a knee-jerk reaction to an Intel-Apple report over the weekend,” Mega International Investment Services Corp (兆豐國際投顧) analyst Alex Huang
TRANSITION: With the closure, the company would reorganize its Taiwanese unit to a sales and service-focused model, Bridgestone said Bridgestone Corp yesterday announced it would cease manufacturing operations at its tire plant in Hsinchu County’s Hukou Township (湖口), affecting more than 500 workers. Bridgestone Taiwan Co (台灣普利司通) said in a statement that the decision was based on the Tokyo-based tire maker’s adjustments to its global operational strategy and long-term market development considerations. The Taiwanese unit would be reorganized as part of the closure, effective yesterday, and all related production activities would be concluded, the statement said. Under the plan, Bridgestone would continue to deepen its presence in the Taiwanese market, while transitioning to a sales and service-focused business model, it added. The Hsinchu
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has approved a capital budget of US$31.28 billion for production expansion to meet long-term development needs during the artificial intelligence (AI) boom. The company’s board meeting yesterday approved the capital appropriation plan for purposes such as the installation of advanced technology capacity and fab construction, the world’s largest contract chipmaker said in a statement. At an earnings conference last month, TSMC forecast that its capital expenditure for this year would be at the higher end of the US$52 billion to US$56 billion range it forecast in January in response to robust demand for 5G, AI and
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) investment project in Arizona has progressed better than expected, but it still faces challenges such as water and labor shortages, National Development Council (NDC) Minister Yeh Chun-hsien (葉俊顯) said yesterday. Speaking with reporters after visiting TSMC’s Arizona hub and attending the SelectUSA Investment Summit in Maryland last week, Yeh said TSMC’s Arizona site turned a profit of NT$16.14 billion (US$514 million) last year in its first full year of mass production. “TSMC told me it was surprised by the smooth trial run of the first fab, which has left the company optimistic about the project’s outlook,”
RSS