The chairman of one of Taiwan’s largest banks, Taishin Financial Holding Co (台新金控), was released early yesterday after being questioned by the Supreme Prosecutors Office for suspected involvement in the alleged corruption scandal of former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁).
Thomas Wu (吳東亮), chairman of Taishin, was suspected of paying a substantial sum of money as bribery to former president Chen’s wife, Wu Shu-jen (吳淑珍), as the private bank was planning to invest in the state-owned Chang Hwa Bank (彰化銀行) when the government was implementing a second phase of financial reforms and encouraging mergers of monetary institutions.
Wu was called in for questioning by the Special Investigative Division of the prosecutors’ office after dozens of investigators made surprise raids at Taishin bank’s headquarters and Wu’s residence in Taipei on Friday afternoon upon the closing of the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
Four others suspected of involvement in the case were taken to the prosecutor’ office for questioning.
Shares of Taishin Financial slid 6.99 percent to NT$10.65 (US$0.33) yesterday, the lowest since May 19.
Local media have reported that in the former first lady’s statement to the Special Investigative Division last February, Wu Shu-jen claimed that the hundreds of millions she had deposited at the safe of Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行) since 2006 were contributed by 20 executives of Taiwanese banks, high-tech firms and media organizations, among which NT$100 million was paid by Thomas Wu.
Taishin holds a 22.5 percent stake in Chang Hwa Bank and is its largest shareholder.
Taishin has been targeted by investigators since the bank was mentioned in the Cabinet’s “second-phase monetary reform review report” released last February.
The report indicated that when Taishin was in the process of acquiring special shares of Chang Hwa Bank, its debt ratio was relatively high.
Some financial specialists also said it did not make sense for Chang Hwa to be merged with Taishin because Chang Hwa was in good financial health at the time of the proposed merger, whereas Taishin was not, meaning that Taishin was in no position to buy the state-owned financial institution.
Before Friday’s questioning, the Taishin chairman had twice been summoned by the investigators as a witness in the money laundering and bribery cases involving the former first family.
He has claimed that Taishin was helping the government settle problems when it acquired shares of Chang Hwa, and had abided by legal procedures.
Thomas Wu had also denied involvement in the money laundering or bribery case.
In a similar case, the Special Investigative Division in December indicted executives of Cathay United Bank and Yuanta Financial Holding Co (元大金控), which were accused of bribing the former first lady in order to “smooth” government requirements to merge with Fuhwa Financial Holding Co (復華金控).
TECH TITAN: Pandemic-era demand for semiconductors turbocharged the nation’s GDP per capita to surpass South Korea’s, but it still remains half that of Singapore Taiwan is set to surpass South Korea this year in terms of wealth for the first time in more than two decades, marking a shift in Asia’s economic ranks made possible by the ascent of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電). According to the latest forecasts released on Thursday by the central bank, Taiwan’s GDP is expected to expand 4.55 percent this year, a further upward revision from the 4.45 percent estimate made by the statistics bureau last month. The growth trajectory puts Taiwan on track to exceed South Korea’s GDP per capita — a key measure of living standards — a
Samsung Electronics Co shares jumped 4.47 percent yesterday after reports it has won approval from Nvidia Corp for the use of advanced high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, which marks a breakthrough for the South Korean technology leader. The stock closed at 83,500 won in Seoul, the highest since July 31 last year. Yesterday’s gain comes after local media, including the Korea Economic Daily, reported that Samsung’s 12-layer HBM3E product recently passed Nvidia’s qualification tests. That clears the components for use in the artificial intelligence (AI) accelerators essential to the training of AI models from ChatGPT to DeepSeek (深度求索), and finally allows Samsung
READY TO HELP: Should TSMC require assistance, the government would fully cooperate in helping to speed up the establishment of the Chiayi plant, an official said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said its investment plans in Taiwan are “unchanged” amid speculation that the chipmaker might have suspended construction work on its second chip packaging plant in Chiayi County and plans to move equipment arranged for the plant to the US. The Chinese-language Economic Daily News reported earlier yesterday that TSMC had halted the construction of the chip packaging plant, which was scheduled to be completed next year and begin mass production in 2028. TSMC did not directly address whether construction of the plant had halted, but said its investment plans in Taiwan remain “unchanged.” The chipmaker started
‘COMPLEMENTARY’: The company unveiled its new Dimensity 9500 smartphone chip, which would power Vivo’s X300 series, set to launch in Taiwan in November MediaTek Inc (聯發科), the world’s largest handset chip designer, yesterday said its strategic collaboration with Nvidia Corp is on track and expected to bear fruit within two to three years, easing concerns over Nvidia’s newly announced partnership with Intel Corp to develop PC chips. MediaTek shares fell 2.43 percent to NT$1,405, underperforming the TAIEX’s 1.18 percent gain, as investors worried that Nvidia’s work with Intel might overshadow its joint PC-chip projects with MediaTek based on Arm Holdings PLC’s architecture. “We are quite complementary to one another in terms of product and technology,” MediaTek president Joe Chen (陳冠州) told reporters during the launch