Taiwan Supreme Court Prosectors’ Office Prosecutor-General Yen Da-ho (顏大和) on Thursday appealed an Intellectual Property Court ruling against Chang Chi Foodstuff Factory Co (大統長基) via extraordinary appeal to the Taiwan Supreme Court.
In the first trial in 2013, the Changhua District Court fined the company NT$1.85 billion (US$5.87 million), and sentenced Kao to 16 years in prison and a personal fine of NT$50 million.
According to the Supreme Court, the Changhua court’s demand of NT$1.85 billion was in contravention of Article 38 of the Criminal Code. The article states that confiscation must be from the personal property of a guilty party, but company profits are not equivalent to the personal property of Kao, the court said.
In the second trial against Chang Chi — heard in the Intellectual Property Court because of the suspicion of false labeling — the company was fined NT$38 million on July 24 last year, although the court ruled that Chang Chi was not a legal entity and therefore was not subject to criminal prosecution.
Kao’s sentence was reduced to 12 years on the grounds he had pleaded guilty to some of the charges.
The Supreme Court Prosecutors’ Office appealed against the Intellectual Property Court’s ruling, saying that it misunderstood the spirit of the Council of Grand Justices’ Interpretation No. 687.
Interpretation No. 687 was issued to explain in further detail the constitutional concept that if a person has no responsibility for a misdemeanor they need not suffer punitive actions, meaning that individuals are only eligible to be punished by law if they have personally broken the law, and the courts could not order the individual to shoulder legal responsibility for crimes committed by others.
According to Taiwan Supreme Court Prosecutors’ Office Secretary-General Hung Tai-wen (洪泰文), the Intellectual Property Court’s ruling proved Chang Chi was capable of criminal activity and eligible to punitive measures as mandated by law. The Intellectual Property Court’s ruling is contradictory and cites the wrong laws for its ruling, Hung said.
The Prosecutors’ Office also cited Item 5 of Article 49 of the Act Governing Food Safety and Sanitation (食品安全衛生管理法), which states that legal entities and hired individuals are eligible to fines if they have broken the law.
Meanwhile, Yen said that the Supreme Court must set a standard for what constitutes a legal entity in lawsuits, as the current law is open to interpretation, as the debate over Chang Chi demonstrates.
Officials from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said that after the passage of the amendment to the Act Governing Food Safety and Sanitation in November last year, if illegal acts were committed after the amendment, managers of companies in violation could be fined up to NT$2 billion and the company’s gains through sales of illegal products could also be confiscated.
The Ministry of Health and Welfare said that if the extraordinary appeal was substantiated and the Supreme Court overturned the Intellectual Property Court’s ruling, it was possible for illicit gains made by Cheng I Food Co (正義食品), a unit of food-scandal-plagued Ting Hsing International Group (頂新國際集團) to be confiscated.
Previously, the gains made by Cheng I could not be touched due to the incident occurring prior to the amendment of the law.
Additional reporting by Yen Hung-chun, Wu Wei-kung and Wu Liang-yi
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