Defendants in an adulterated cooking oil case that shook the nation last year, including former Ting Hsin International Group (頂新集團) executive Wei Ying-chun (魏應充), were found not guilty of breaching the Act Governing Food Safety and Sanitation (食品安全衛生管理法) by the Changhua District Court yesterday.
The Changhua County Prosecutors’ Office in October last year charged former Ting Hsin Oil and Fat Industrial Co (頂新製油實業) chairman Wei over violations of the act after investigators found the company had imported animal feed-grade material from Vietnam-based oil manufacturer Dai Hanh Phuc Co (大幸福) and declared it to customs as fit for human consumption. It was then used to make oil for cooking and making pastry.
At the time, prosecutors asked for a 30-year prison sentence for Wei, while asking for 18 years each for 59-year-old former Ting Hsin Oil and Fat general manager Chang Mei-feng (常梅峰), 43-year-old former acting president Chen Mao-chia (陳茂嘉) and 56-year-old Yang Chen-yi (楊振益), the owner of Dai Hanh Phuc.
Photo: Chen Kuan-pei, Taipei Times
The prosecutors also recommended the confiscation of allegedly illegal profits Ting Hsin International Group made from the oil products, totaling NT$440 million (US$13.4 million).
Yesterday’s ruling said prosecutors failed to prove that Ting Hsin Oil and Fat sourced fat extracted from unhealthy animals or that the company’s products were manufactured using unsanitary processes.
The defendants could not be proved to have committed the crimes they were charged with and are therefore not guilty, it said.
Photo: Yen Hung-chun, Taipei Times
The case can be appealed.
Wei resigned as chairman of Ting Hsin Oil and Fat, Cheng I Food Co (正義股份) and Wei Chuan Foods Corp (味全食品工業) — all companies controlled by the family-run Ting Hsin International Group — after the firms were found to be producing questionable oil products.
In a statement released after the ruling, the group said it respects the court’s decision and would accept all criticism from society, adding it would seek to give back to Taiwan, which it considers its home, as much as possible.
Netizens and civic groups reacted angrily to the ruling.
Saying the verdicts were vastly different from what the public expected, many netizens said that the nation’s judiciary was dead.
One netizen sarcastically said that he was glad to hear the ruling because it meant the oil he consumed over the past decade was safe and that he had not consumed tainted oil products for a decade or more.
Homemakers United Foundation secretary-general Lai Hsiao-fen (賴曉芬) called on consumers to boycott Ting Hsin’s products in light of the ruling, adding that consumers should use their autonomy and make corporations pay a price for malfeasance.
Former Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office head prosecutor Hu Yuan-lung (胡原龍), who had been involved in the investigation of the case, said the discrepancy between public expectations and the ruling was due to the hastiness of the Changhua County Prosecutors’ Office.
The Changhua office investigated for only eight days before it indicted the defendants, Hu said, adding that the investigation could not find substantial evidence to back the allegations, which was the prime reason the collegiate benchruled the way it did
The Food and Drug Administration said it would cooperate with the Changhua office to provide evidence, vowing to appeal the ruling.
Linkou Chang Gung Memorial Hospital department of clinical toxicology director Yen Tsung-hai (顏宗海) said that cooking oils have few categories of inspection, most of which only search for total polar compounds and heavy metals, but there could be other harmful ingredients in oils.
National Taiwan University (NTU) toxicology professor Chiang Chih-kang (姜至剛) called on legal amendments to define items that can cause chronic toxicity, while NTU’s Food Safety Center executive officer Hsu Fu (許輔) said the government should grant food inspection controllers more power to prevent food safety incidents.
Additional reporting by Chen Ping-hung and Wu Liang-yi
‘ABUSE OF POWER’: Lee Chun-yi allegedly used a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon and take his wife to restaurants, media reports said Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) resigned on Sunday night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by the media. Control Yuan Vice President Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) yesterday apologized to the public over the issue. The watchdog body would follow up on similar accusations made by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and would investigate the alleged misuse of government vehicles by three other Control Yuan members: Su Li-chiung (蘇麗瓊), Lin Yu-jung (林郁容) and Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋), Lee Hung-chun said. Lee Chun-yi in a statement apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a
EUROPEAN TARGETS: The planned Munich center would support TSMC’s European customers to design high-performance, energy-efficient chips, an executive said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday said that it plans to launch a new research-and-development (R&D) center in Munich, Germany, next quarter to assist customers with chip design. TSMC Europe president Paul de Bot made the announcement during a technology symposium in Amsterdam on Tuesday, the chipmaker said. The new Munich center would be the firm’s first chip designing center in Europe, it said. The chipmaker has set up a major R&D center at its base of operations in Hsinchu and plans to create a new one in the US to provide services for major US customers,
BEIJING’S ‘PAWN’: ‘We, as Chinese, should never forget our roots, history, culture,’ Want Want Holdings general manager Tsai Wang-ting said at a summit in China The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday condemned Want Want China Times Media Group (旺旺中時媒體集團) for making comments at the Cross-Strait Chinese Culture Summit that it said have damaged Taiwan’s sovereignty, adding that it would investigate if the group had colluded with China in the matter and contravened cross-strait regulations. The council issued a statement after Want Want Holdings (旺旺集團有限公司) general manager Tsai Wang-ting (蔡旺庭), the third son of the group’s founder, Tsai Eng-meng (蔡衍明), said at the summit last week that the group originated in “Chinese Taiwan,” and has developed and prospered in “the motherland.” “We, as Chinese, should never
‘A SURVIVAL QUESTION’: US officials have been urging the opposition KMT and TPP not to block defense spending, especially the special defense budget, an official said The US plans to ramp up weapons sales to Taiwan to a level exceeding US President Donald Trump’s first term as part of an effort to deter China as it intensifies military pressure on the nation, two US officials said on condition of anonymity. If US arms sales do accelerate, it could ease worries about the extent of Trump’s commitment to Taiwan. It would also add new friction to the tense US-China relationship. The officials said they expect US approvals for weapons sales to Taiwan over the next four years to surpass those in Trump’s first term, with one of them saying