Several bankers were found not guilty last week by the Taiwan High Court on charges of offering bribes to former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) in relation to a series of bank mergers.
A prosecutor yesterday said they might decide not to appeal the not-guilty verdicts to the Supreme Court, which would result in the cases being dropped.
Chen was sentenced to 18 years in prison by the Taiwan High Court on Thursday for taking bribes from bankers in relation to a series of bank mergers during his eight years in office, fined NT$180 million (US$5.95 million) and stripped of his civil rights for nine years.
His wife, Wu Shu-jen (吳淑珍), was sentenced to 11 years and fined NT$102 million in the same case and stripped of her civil rights for eight years.
The accused executives, including Yuanta Financial Holding Co founder Rudy Ma (馬志玲), former China Development Financial Holding Corp president Angelo Koo (辜仲瑩), Cathay Financial Holdings Co vice chairman Tsai Chen-yu (蔡鎮宇) and former Mega Financial Holding Co chairman Cheng Sheng-chih (鄭深池) were also found not guilty in the same ruling.
Only two executives were found guilty of helping the former first family to launder money — former Yuanta Financial Holding president Victor Ma (馬維建) who was sentenced to eight months in prison and granted two years probation, while former Yuanta Securities Co board member Tu Li-ping (杜麗萍) was sentenced to two months in prison and two years probation.
Chen Hung-ta (陳宏達), spokesman for the Special Investigation Division (SID) of the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office, yesterday said that according to the Speedy Criminal Trials Act (刑事妥速審判法), which came into force last year, if defendants are found not guilty in their first and second trials, prosecutors cannot appeal those cases to the Supreme Court unless prosecutors discover the not-guilty rulings are seriously flawed.
The prosecutor said that as the executives were found not guilty in their first and second trails, an appeal to the Supreme Court would likely not be made.
SID prosecutors charged the defendants in December 2009, alleging that the bankers had bribed the former president to pressure the Ministry of Finance to approve mergers during financial reforms promoted by the Chen administration to encourage greater consolidation in the banking sector.
Taipei, New Taipei City, Keelung and Taoyuan would issue a decision at 8pm on whether to cancel work and school tomorrow due to forecasted heavy rain, Keelung Mayor Hsieh Kuo-liang (謝國樑) said today. Hsieh told reporters that absent some pressing reason, the four northern cities would announce the decision jointly at 8pm. Keelung is expected to receive between 300mm and 490mm of rain in the period from 2pm today through 2pm tomorrow, Central Weather Administration data showed. Keelung City Government regulations stipulate that school and work can be canceled if rain totals in mountainous or low-elevation areas are forecast to exceed 350mm in
EVA Airways president Sun Chia-ming (孫嘉明) and other senior executives yesterday bowed in apology over the death of a flight attendant, saying the company has begun improving its health-reporting, review and work coordination mechanisms. “We promise to handle this matter with the utmost responsibility to ensure safer and healthier working conditions for all EVA Air employees,” Sun said. The flight attendant, a woman surnamed Sun (孫), died on Friday last week of undisclosed causes shortly after returning from a work assignment in Milan, Italy, the airline said. Chinese-language media reported that the woman fell ill working on a Taipei-to-Milan flight on Sept. 22
COUNTERMEASURE: Taiwan was to implement controls for 47 tech products bound for South Africa after the latter downgraded and renamed Taipei’s ‘de facto’ offices The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is still reviewing a new agreement proposed by the South African government last month to regulate the status of reciprocal representative offices, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said yesterday. Asked about the latest developments in a year-long controversy over Taiwan’s de facto representative office in South Africa, Lin during a legislative session said that the ministry was consulting with legal experts on the proposed new agreement. While the new proposal offers Taiwan greater flexibility, the ministry does not find it acceptable, Lin said without elaborating. The ministry is still open to resuming retaliatory measures against South
1.4nm WAFERS: While TSMC is gearing up to expand its overseas production, it would also continue to invest in Taiwan, company chairman and CEO C.C. Wei said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) has applied for permission to construct a new plant in the Central Taiwan Science Park (中部科學園區), which it would use for the production of new high-speed wafers, the National Science and Technology Council said yesterday. The council, which supervises three major science parks in Taiwan, confirmed that the Central Taiwan Science Park Bureau had received an application on Friday from TSMC, the world’s largest contract chipmaker, to commence work on the new A14 fab. A14 technology, a 1.4 nanometer (nm) process, is designed to drive artificial intelligence transformation by enabling faster computing and greater power
RSS