Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators yesterday accused former minister of economic affairs Yiin Chii-ming (尹啟銘) of arranging payouts for XPEC Entertainment Inc (樂陞科技) in exchange for a high-level position in the scandal-ridden company.
During Yiin’s term in August 2009, the Ministry of Economic Affairs appointed XPEC chairman Aaron Hsu (許金龍) as the director of the Institute for Information Technology, a state-sponsored corporation founded by the ministry, DPP Legislator Chen Ting-fei (陳亭妃) said.
During Hsu’s term at the institute from 2009 to July last year, XPEC received five government grants from the ministry’s Industrial Development Bureau totaling NT$58 million (US$1.83 million at the current exchange rate) to develop console and online games, game development tools and start-up programs, Chen said.
Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times
The institute is subcontracted by the bureau to review applications for the bureau’s financial aid programs.
Hsu in July last year offered Yiin a position as an independent director for XPEC with an annual salary of NT$430,000, and Yiin has made NT$1.29 million since then, Chen said, asking whether the two benefited from the appointments illegally.
Japanese company Bai Chi Gan Tou Digital Entertainment Co on May 31 announced a plan to acquire XPEC, but Bai Chi scrapped the deal on Aug. 30, marking the first default on a tender offer settlement in Taiwan.
Following the failure of the deal, rumors emerged that the merger was a scheme to short the company’s stock.
“It is unusual for a young company to receive large government grants, especially when the gaming industry was relatively undeveloped in 2009,” DPP Legislator Julian Kuo (郭正亮) said.
The merger was approved in July by the Investment Commission, another agency under the purview of the ministry, with XPEC allowed to issue convertible bonds in March, although the company had already pledged more than 80 percent of the shares it owned, suggesting that the company might be getting help from someone in the government, Kuo said.
XPEC did not start to make profits until 2009 when the company began receiving government grants as Hsu became a director of the institute, DPP Legislator Wang Ding-yu (王定宇) said.
The company received much more government funding than online game publisher Gamania Digital Entertainment Co (遊戲橘子), which received only NT$3 million in government grants in 2009, Wang said.
“Hsu did not avoid the conflict of interest, but allowed the institute to accept XPEC’s grant applications and fill the company’s pockets,” DPP Legislator Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁) said.
The legislators described Yiin as a “gatekeeper” for XPEC, and called on Yiin and Hsu to clarify their roles in the failed merger.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods