KMT Legislator Gary Wang (
Eleven defendants were also called at the committal proceedings yesterday to state whether they had been involved in the multi-million land deals -- one made in 1998 and the other in 1999.
Informed of the charges against him -- breach of trust, forgery and tampering with accounting records -- Wang, chairman of Eastern Multimedia and also chairman of the General Chamber of Commerce of the ROC (
The heir to the Rebar Group denied that he had inflated the price of a plot of land in Yangmei township, Taoyuan County, and obtained millions of dollars in under-the-table profits through the resale of the land, measured approximately 75,000m2.
Tsai, also appearing in yesterday's pre-trial procedure, denied the allegations that he had helped facilitate the land transactions between Wang's company and the state-run Taiwan Development and Trust Corp (TDTC,
Tsai, who plans to run in the December legislative elections, also urged the presiding judge Chu Meng-ping (
Chu did not respond to Tsai's request.
Prosecutors from the Taipei District Prosecutors' Office said that the case involved two stages: the sale and then the purchase of land in Yangmei. During each stage, under-the-table deals between the two sides inflated the price of the land to create illegal profits.
According to prosecutors, the listed Far Eastern Silo and Shipping (FESS,
The prosecution said that around NT$189 million of the price difference found its way through several dummy accounts into the accounts of another company owned by Wang. Chu's company also made NT$55 million from the artificially raised price.
The prosecution said this was a conspiracy in which Wang, Chu and two others squeezed money out of FESS and its shareholders. FESS intended to build a villa complex on the land, but due to the continuing decline in real estate prices, Wang then sought, after partially developing it, to sell it off for NT$1.8 billion to the state-run TDTC, also a listed company.
According to the indictment, Wang asked his close aide Chou Chi-peng (
Wang then asked Tsai Hau a board member of TDTC and Kao Chien-wen (高建文), the vice chairman, to push the board to make a decision to buy the land in November 1999. The move came hot on the heels of a report conducted by TDTC only a month earlier which concluded that such an investment was not worthwhile.
The prosecution has asked for a jail term of four years, 10 months for Wang and three years for Tsai. The trial is scheduled to begin on July 18.
CHIPMAKING INVESTMENT: J.W. Kuo told legislators that Department of Investment Review approval would be needed were Washington to seek a TSMC board seat Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) yesterday said he received information about a possible US government investment in Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and an assessment of the possible effect on the firm requires further discussion. If the US were to invest in TSMC, the plan would need to be reviewed by the Department of Investment Review, Kuo told reporters ahead of a hearing of the legislature’s Economics Committee. Kuo’s remarks came after US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick on Tuesday said that the US government is looking into the federal government taking equity stakes in computer chip manufacturers that
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers have declared they survived recall votes to remove them from office today, although official results are still pending as the vote counting continues. Although final tallies from the Central Election Commission (CEC) are still pending, preliminary results indicate that the recall campaigns against all seven KMT lawmakers have fallen short. As of 6:10 pm, Taichung Legislators Yen Kuan-heng (顏寬恒) and Yang Chiung-ying (楊瓊瓔), Hsinchu County Legislator Lin Szu-ming (林思銘), Nantou County Legislator Ma Wen-chun (馬文君) and New Taipei City Legislator Lo Ming-tsai (羅明才) had all announced they
POWER PLANT POLL: The TPP said the number of ‘yes’ votes showed that the energy policy should be corrected, and the KMT said the result was a win for the people’s voice The government does not rule out advanced nuclear energy generation if it meets the government’s three prerequisites, President William Lai (賴清德) said last night after the number of votes in favor of restarting a nuclear power plant outnumbered the “no” votes in a referendum yesterday. The referendum failed to pass, despite getting more “yes” votes, as the Referendum Act (公民投票法) states that the vote would only pass if the votes in favor account for more than one-fourth of the total number of eligible voters and outnumber the opposing votes. Yesterday’s referendum question was: “Do you agree that the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant
Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) yesterday visited Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), as the chipmaker prepares for volume production of Nvidia’s next-generation artificial intelligence (AI) chips. It was Huang’s third trip to Taiwan this year, indicating that Nvidia’s supply chain is deeply connected to Taiwan. Its partners also include packager Siliconware Precision Industries Co (矽品精密) and server makers Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) and Quanta Computer Inc (廣達). “My main purpose is to visit TSMC,” Huang said yesterday. “As you know, we have next-generation architecture called Rubin. Rubin is very advanced. We have now taped out six brand new