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Taiwan High Court overturns ruling on Banciao land

"They [BCC] began to `act' as the owners of the land after that date."

Joseph Lin, Ministry of Transportation and Communications lawyer

The Taiwan High Court yesterday overturned its previous verdict and ruled in favor of the Ministry of Transportation and Communica-tions in its argument with the Broadcasting Corp of China (BCC, 中廣公司) over the ownership of eight plots of land in Banciao (板橋), Taipei County.

In 2004, the ministry began attempts to retrieve the ownership of the eight plots, located on Mintsu Road, from the BCC.

The eight tracts are estimated to be worth about NT$1.05 billion (US$33 million).

The ministry argued that BCC's ownership of the land went against the Civil Code and National Property Law and BCC's registration of the land was done illegally.

The Banciao District Court in 2005 ruled against the ministry in the first case and that decision was upheld by the Taiwan High Court. But the Supreme Court last March asked the high co t to rehear the case.

"We will appeal," BCC counsel Lee Yun-ran (李永然) said.

Joseph Lin (林永頌), the ministry's lawyer, said that BCC did not have any legal reason to claim ownership of the land because the registration of the eight plots had been illegally transferred from the ministry to BCC on Aug. 5, 1985.

"They [BCC] began to `act' as the owners of the land after that date," Lin said.

Lee, however, rebutted that claim, saying that the change of registration in 1985 was approved by then-premier Yu Kuo-hua (俞國華).

"The registration was legal and approved by the Cabinet," Lee said.

Lee said BCC "purchased" the eight plots from the government.

"The total cost of the eight pieces of land was deducted from the government's annual fund for broadcast business. All the evidence was retrievable," Lee said.
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