A Legislative Yuan committee yesterday passed a motion asking Academia Sinica President Wong Chi-huey (翁啟惠) to resign amid a snowballing insider-trading scandal, while Wong said he might have indirectly invested in OBI Pharma Inc (台灣浩鼎), the company at the heart of the scandal.
Legislators across party lines passed the motion at a meeting of the Education and Culture Committee, which Wong attended.
The lawmakers said the scandal has done irreparable harm to Academia Sinica and the nation’s biotechnology industry, and Wong is no longer suitable to head the institute because he has failed to clarify his actions and is suspected of corruption and breach of trust.
Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times
Wong should resign and cooperate with a prosecutors’ investigation, the motion states.
Wong tendered his resignation to President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) last month, citing health reasons, but Ma rejected it. He later decided to stay on in the post despite repeated calls for him to step down. On Tuesday, Ma denied Wong’s request for a 28-day leave of absence.
The controversy began after Wong endorsed OBI Pharma’s new cancer drugs, despite discouraging clinical trial results in February, and it emerged shortly afterward that his daughter is a major shareholder in the company. It also emerged that Wong, on behalf of his daughter, sold 10,000 of the firm’s shares before the trial results were publicly released.
Responding to Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Rosalia Wu’s (吳思瑤) question as to why he chose to stay in its post, thereby angering the public, Wong said: “I think the accusation is unfair to me. My resignation would not prove my innocence. I have to uphold Academia Sinica’s reputation, not mine. Many reports are unfair to me, so I have to remain in the post.”
Asked by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Apollo Chen (陳學聖) if he held shares in OBI Pharma under other people’s names, Wong said he and OBI Pharma chairman Michael Chang (張念慈) had a joint investment fund, which was used to invest in two companies that later bought OBI Pharma shares.
“I gave the money to Chang, and he was in charge of the investment. I knew the two companies he invested in, which are not OBI Pharma. However, I realized later that the two companies had invested in OBI Pharma during the [prosecutors’] investigation,” he said.
While acknowledging Wong’s honesty, Chen said prosecutors should decide whether that investment violated the law.
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