District prosecutors led investigators in a search of Sika Taiwan’s offices yesterday and confiscated inventory reports, contracts and other paperwork as part of their investigation into a scandal over the use of defective adhesive in public construction projects.
Sika Taiwan is suspected of failing to inform the Taipei City Government of a product recall in January by the manufacturer’s US branch, Sika USA.
The city government used one of the recalled products, AnchorFix-4, in several construction projects, including the Xinsheng Overpass (新生高架橋), until the Chinese-language Next Magazine contacted city officials earlier this month with questions about the use of the adhesives.
The Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office said it did not wait for city government to file the lawsuit, but assigned prosecutor Lin Tsung-chih (林宗志) to lead the investigation to help speed up the process.
Investigators from the Ministry of Justice’s Investigation Bureau took part in the raid on the Sika Taiwan’s office in Lujhu (蘆竹) Township, Taoyuan County.
Prosecutors said they were trying to determine whether Sika Taiwan committed offenses against public safety, or engaged in fraud and forgery.
They said a key element in the probe would be determining whether its managers and employees deliberately failed to inform the city of the recall.
They said they would call the company’s managers in for questioning.
The Xinsheng Overpass has been undergoing a NT$1.6 billion (US$48 million) renovation since July last year.
It had been scheduled to reopen at the end of next month.
The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) yesterday said it had deployed patrol vessels to expel a China Coast Guard ship and a Chinese fishing boat near Pratas Island (Dongsha Island, 東沙群島) in the South China Sea. The China Coast Guard vessel was 28 nautical miles (52km) northeast of Pratas at 6:15am on Thursday, approaching the island’s restricted waters, which extend 24 nautical miles from its shoreline, the CGA’s Dongsha-Nansha Branch said in a statement. The Tainan, a 2,000-tonne cutter, was deployed by the CGA to shadow the Chinese ship, which left the area at 2:39pm on Friday, the statement said. At 6:31pm on Friday,
The Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy’s (PLAN) third aircraft carrier, the Fujian, would pose a steep challenge to Taiwan’s ability to defend itself against a full-scale invasion, a defense expert said yesterday. Institute of National Defense and Security Research analyst Chieh Chung (揭仲) made the comment hours after the PLAN confirmed the carrier recently passed through the Taiwan Strait to conduct “scientific research tests and training missions” in the South China Sea. China has two carriers in operation — the Liaoning and the Shandong — with the Fujian undergoing sea trials. Although the PLAN needs time to train the Fujian’s air wing and
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Taiwanese celebrities Hank Chen (陳漢典) and Lulu Huang (黃路梓茵) announced yesterday that they are planning to marry. Huang announced and posted photos of their engagement to her social media pages yesterday morning, joking that the pair were not just doing marketing for a new show, but “really getting married.” “We’ve decided to spend all of our future happy and hilarious moments together,” she wrote. The announcement, which was later confirmed by the talent agency they share, appeared to come as a surprise even to those around them, with veteran TV host Jacky Wu (吳宗憲) saying he was “totally taken aback” by the news. Huang,
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