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Prosecute financial officials who shirk duties: investigator

Financial officials who have not actively sought to fulfill their duties when overseeing banking, capital investment and corporate operations should be subject to strict criminal penalties to discourage financial crimes, a prosecutor said on Saturday.

Hsu Yung-chin (許永欽), a head prosecutor with the Shilin Prosecutor's Office in Taipei City, made the remark in a speech at a seminar on improving financial supervision to prevent economic and high-tech crimes.

Hsu, the country's first prosecutor to be assigned to the Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC), said that during his stint there, he saw many financial officials who only passively policed share sales and corporate accounting.

Hsu, who has investigated high-profile financial scandals such as the Taiwan Development Corp insider trading case involving President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) son-in-law Chao Chien-ming (趙建銘), said financial crimes and crimes involving the rich and famous were perhaps proliferating because of a lack of oversight.

However, such criminal activities might also indicate weaknesses in legal, economic, social and political mechanisms, Hsu said.

Corporate financial scandals may also in a sense be caused by negligence on the part of internal monitors, he said, adding that accounting and administrative supervisors should rethink their work methods and ask whether they fulfill their duties.

If supervisory units fail to actively cooperate with prosecutors, Hsu said, that in itself should be probed.

With that in mind, Hsu said, financial supervisors who have been lax or passive in carrying out their watchdog duties should be prosecuted and given harsh prison sentences to send a clear signal that corporate crime will be prosecuted.
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