A New Jersey judge refused on Thursday to dismiss a lawsuit over who should administer the multibillion dollar estate of Formosa Plastics Group (FPG, 台塑集團) founder Wang Yung-ching (王永慶).
Wang was Taiwan’s second-richest man when he died at age 91 without a will in October in New Jersey. The eldest of his nine children, Winston Wong (王文洋), sued on May 13 in state court in Newark, New Jersey, arguing the case should be heard there because of his father’s extensive business holdings in the state.
Four of Wang’s children, led by his daughter Susan Wang (王瑞華), asked Superior Court Judge Walter Kaprowski to dismiss the case, saying their father had no assets in New Jersey and the matter should be decided in Taiwan. Kaprowski denied the bid and said the parties need to gather pretrial evidence to determine whether Wang owned assets and was a resident of New Jersey.
“It’s an issue that requires some discovery so that I can make a jurisdictional ruling as to whether this matter can proceed,” Kaprowski ruled at the hearing.
Wong claims the estate includes US$1.7 billion in assets in Taiwan, US$1 billion in a Credit Suisse Group AG account and US$7.5 billion in several offshore trusts and a US trust.
Kaprowski didn’t rule on Wong’s request to serve as administrator of the estate. An administrator would gather assets, determine liabilities, make distributions, help decide who the proper heirs are and weigh what US or Taiwanese law applies.
Wong claims his father’s ailing widow deserves half of the estate because she married him in 1935 and never divorced him. Wang Yung-ching, known as the “God of Management” in Taiwan, had all nine of his children with other women.
An attorney for the Susan Wang group, Lawrence Neher, argued that Wong’s attorney Michael Griffinger failed to establish that the late industrialist owned any of the Formosa companies based in New Jersey. He argued that on May 13, Wang Yung-ching’s estate filed a tax return in Taiwan that listed his three wives and nine children as heirs.
“The proofs are not here,” Neher said. “The witnesses are not here. It’s not New Jersey law. The heirs should work it out in Taiwan.”
Another son, Walter Wang (王文祥), claims the case should be decided in New Jersey, and that he should oversee the estate, according to Michael Dell, his attorney.
Dell also represents two of Wang Yung-ching’s three daughters and the woman who is the mother of both Walter Wang and Winston Wong.
Kaprowski will hold another hearing again on Sept. 11.
Wang Yung-ching died of cardiopulmonary arrest on Oct. 15 at his house in Short Hills, New Jersey, two days after arriving from Taiwan. He traveled to Short Hills “numerous times on a regular basis every year of the last 20-plus years of his life,” and lived there in the 1980s, the complaint said.
Wong alleges that his father “did not personally execute” any of the documents setting up US$7.5 billion in trusts.
They include Bermuda trusts overseen by children of Wang’s brother, including William Wong and Wilfred Wang, the complaint says. Another entity known as New Mighty Trust holds stock in Formosa Plastic’s US companies in Livingston, New Jersey, according to the complaint.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
US CONSCULTANT: The US Department of Commerce’s Ursula Burns is a rarely seen US government consultant to be put forward to sit on the board, nominated as an independent director Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday nominated 10 candidates for its new board of directors, including Ursula Burns from the US Department of Commerce. It is rare that TSMC has nominated a US government consultant to sit on its board. Burns was nominated as one of seven independent directors. She is vice chair of the department’s Advisory Council on Supply Chain Competitiveness. Burns is to stand for election at TSMC’s annual shareholders’ meeting on June 4 along with the rest of the candidates. TSMC chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) was not on the list after in December last