The Taiwan High Court’s Kaohsiung branch yesterday reversed a lower court verdict, finding all five defendants in a 2013 pollution case involving Advanced Semiconductor Engineering Inc (ASE, 日月光半導體) not guilty on various charges related to discharging wastewater from the company’s K7 plant into the Houjing River (後勁溪).
The court acquitted four ASE executives and employees of all charges, including K7 plant general manager Su Ping-shou (蘇炳碩), plant wastewater section director Tsai Chi-hsun (蔡奇勳) and two wastewater section engineers — Yu Chih-hsien (游志賢) and Liu Wei-cheng (劉威呈).
Yesterday’s second ruling in the ongoing trial also cleared ASE of charges, meaning the company does not have to pay a NT$3 million (US$90,901) fine imposed by the Kaohsiung District Court in the first ruling on Oct. 20 last year.
Photo: Chang Chung-yi, Taipei Times
In the first ruling, the court found the four defendants guilty, but gave suspended sentences ranging from 16 months to 22 months, related to breaches of the Waste Disposal Act (廢棄物清理法).
Prosecutors appealed to the higher court at that time, saying the punishments were too lenient, as suspended sentences meant none of the defendants had to serve jail terms.
Another ASE K7 plant engineer, Ho Teng-yang (何登陽), who was found not guilty in last year’s ruling, had his verdict upheld by the high court.
ASE, said to be world’s largest IC packaging company, was accused of dumping industrial wastewater containing carcinogenic compounds and other toxic substances in the Houjing River after reports of discoloration and suspected pollution in October 2013.
Yesterday’s ruling was based on the judge’s belief that ASE had treated the wastewater and waste sludge differently, and that if any violations had occurred, they would be of the Water Pollution Control Act (水污染防治法).
The wastewater in question was not “hazardous industrial waste,” so the first ruling was wrong to have cited violations of the Waste Disposal Act (廢棄物清理法), yesterday’s ruling said.
The ruling said that Water Pollution Control Act laws regarding the discharge of toxic wastewater by businesses were only amended in February, and therefore a punishment cannot be meted out for a case from 2013.
The ruling also said that ASE employees had added extra amounts of alkaline liquid into wastewater to neutralize its acidity on the day pollution levels were recorded (Oct. 1, 2013), with pH levels shown to have returned to legal discharge standards by 8pm that night.
“Although there were shortcomings on that day’s processing and treatment of wastewater, it was not done deliberately, nor was it done in a haphazard way... Therefore, there were flaws in the first ruling,” it said.
It also said that prosecutors provided only one fish specimen and one sample from the riverbed as evidence of pollution, without presenting samples from other locations, or samples from preceding and subsequent times for comparison, adding that as reasonable doubt remains, the defendants should be acquitted of the charges.
The Kaohsiung District Prosecutors’ Office said it would decide whether to appeal the case after reviewing the ruling.
Rainfall is expected to become more widespread and persistent across central and southern Taiwan over the next few days, with the effects of the weather patterns becoming most prominent between last night and tomorrow, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Independent meteorologist Daniel Wu (吳德榮) said that based on the latest forecast models of the combination of a low-pressure system and southwesterly winds, rainfall and flooding are expected to continue in central and southern Taiwan from today to Sunday. The CWA also warned of flash floods, thunder and lightning, and strong gusts in these areas, as well as landslides and fallen
WAITING GAME: The US has so far only offered a ‘best rate tariff,’ which officials assume is about 15 percent, the same as Japan, a person familiar with the matter said Taiwan and the US have completed “technical consultations” regarding tariffs and a finalized rate is expected to be released soon, Executive Yuan spokeswoman Michelle Lee (李慧芝) told a news conference yesterday, as a 90-day pause on US President Donald Trump’s “reciprocal” tariffs is set to expire today. The two countries have reached a “certain degree of consensus” on issues such as tariffs, nontariff trade barriers, trade facilitation, supply chain resilience and economic security, Lee said. They also discussed opportunities for cooperation, investment and procurement, she said. A joint statement is still being negotiated and would be released once the US government has made
SOUTH CHINA SEA? The Philippine president spoke of adding more classrooms and power plants, while skipping tensions with China over disputed areas Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr yesterday blasted “useless and crumbling” flood control projects in a state of the nation address that focused on domestic issues after a months-long feud with his vice president. Addressing a joint session of congress after days of rain that left at least 31 dead, Marcos repeated his recent warning that the nation faced a climate change-driven “new normal,” while pledging to investigate publicly funded projects that had failed. “Let’s not pretend, the people know that these projects can breed corruption. Kickbacks ... for the boys,” he said, citing houses that were “swept away” by the floods. “Someone has
‘CRUDE’: The potential countermeasure is in response to South Africa renaming Taiwan’s representative offices and the insistence that it move out of Pretoria Taiwan is considering banning exports of semiconductors to South Africa after the latter unilaterally downgraded and changed the names of Taiwan’s two representative offices, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said yesterday. On Monday last week, the South African Department of International Relations and Cooperation unilaterally released a statement saying that, as of April 1, the Taipei Liaison Offices in Pretoria and Cape Town had been renamed the “Taipei Commercial Office in Johannesburg” and the “Taipei Commercial Office in Cape Town.” Citing UN General Assembly Resolution 2758, it said that South Africa “recognizes the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as the sole