Judicial officials yesterday restricted Academia Sinica President Wong Chi-huey (翁啟惠) from leaving Taiwan pending an ongoing investigation into the OBI Pharma Inc (台灣浩鼎) case.
Wong was released yesterday morning after overnight questioning by prosecutors.
OBI Pharma Inc chairman Michael Chang (張念慈) was later released on NT$1 million bail (US$30,964), and the company’s finance division manager Chang Sui-fen (張穗芬) was released on NT$500,000 bail. Both are also restricted from leaving Taiwan.
The OBI Pharma officials have been listed as defendants on breach of trust charges.
According to prosecutors, the charges stemmed from their most recent rounds of questioning.
Prosecutors have alleged violations of the law and improper conduct during the transfer of biogenetic technology from Academia Sinica — the nation’s highest research institution — to OBI Pharma Inc in 2010, which led to the development of the pharmaceutical company’s flagship products, OBI-833 and OBI-822, which are cancer-fighting drugs.
Prosecutors alleged there were unusual financial transactions between the main suspects, while also accusing Wong of directing Academia Sinica research groups to sell the core technology for developing OBI-833 and OBI-822 to OBI Pharma, to boost the potential value of the company’s stock.
It was found Wong’s daughter bought about 3 million OBI Pharma shares in 2012 at relatively low prices from two investment firms under Ruentex Group (潤泰集團), which allowed her to potentially reap billions of New Taiwan dollars in profit.
Prosecutors believed Wong used his daughter as a front for profiteering on OBI Pharma stock trading, while Wong was a co-founder of the company and allegedly had close relationships with company executives.
Ruentex Group is one of OBI Pharma’s major shareholders. Its chairman, Samuel Yin (尹衍樑), testified against Wong after he was summoned for questioning on Wednesday.
Yin’s testimony against Wong and the other suspects has caused controversy, with some political commentators accusing Yin and his associates of being the real culprits in a behind-the-scenes manipulation of the OBI Pharma share price.
Many people have also claimed the probe is a political persecution of Wong, directed by senior government officials to undermine his reputation.
The widening firestorm embroiling Wong has also inflamed political circles, with Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers calling on Wong to resign from his post as president of Academia Sinica.
Prior to his return from the US last week, Wong had tendered his resignation, however it was refused by President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), as the government urged him to answer questions and face an investigation in person.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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