Yuanta Group chairman Rudy Ma (馬志玲) yesterday denied charges of breach of trust at a pretrial hearing in a case involving alleged irregular trading.
Ma and his wife, former Yuanta Securities Corp (元大證券) chairwoman Judy Tu (杜麗莊), among others, were indicted a month ago on suspicion of violating breach of trust and the Securities Transaction Act (證券交易法), among other offenses.
Prosecutors have asked the Taipei District Court to sentence Ma and his wife to 10 years in prison.
Along with the couple, Yuanta Securities president Lee Chang (張立秋), bond department assistant manager Wu Li-min (吳麗敏), Yuanta Bank general manager Chen Chi-chang (陳麒漳) and former Yuanta official Lin Ming-yi (林明義) were indicted for alleged involvement. Prosecutors have requested eight-year sentences for each of them.
All six defendants protested their innocence. Five are barred from leaving the country.
The court has yet to announce whether Ma would be barred as well.
Ma’s lawyer said his client had been showing signs of dementia for the past three years and should be allowed to travel to avoid changes to his routine that could have an affect on his condition.
Prosecutors say the irregularities involved the sale of shares of Yuanta Investment Trust Co to Yuanta Securities in 2005 after the former suffered substantial losses from its investment in interest-rate-linked structured notes following a series of rate hikes by the US Federal Reserve.
Prosecutors said that Yuanta Securities made NT$600 million (US$18 million) in illegal profits from the trading.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
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