The Ill-gotten Party Assets Settlement Committee forfeited the right to appeal a court ruling that suspended the committee’s order to transfer the properties of two holding companies to the state, saying the ruling acknowledges the affiliation of the two companies with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT).
The committee in November last year identified Central Investment Co (中央投資公司) and Hsinyutai Co (欣裕台股份有限公司) as KMT-affiliated organizations, ordering that their assets, valued at about NT$15.6 billion (US$483.8 million at the current exchange rate), should be transferred to the state, as they were founded with illegally obtained assets.
However, the Taipei High Administrative Court last month suspended the transfer, as it could cause irreparable damage to the KMT and the companies should they win a legal battle against the committee over the status of the two companies and the disposition of their assets.
Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times
The committee yesterday said it decided to give up its right to appeal, as the verdict validated the committee’s identification of the stakes the KMT holds in the two companies as ill-gotten assets, which would prevent them from being transferred or appropriated.
“The committee’s members have unanimously agreed to forfeit the right to appeal, because the ruling effectively freezes controversial party assets to ensure fair competition between political parties,” committee member Lien Li-jen (連立堅) said.
The committee understands that the resolution to the party assets controversy lies in the legal process, committee spokeswoman Shih Chin-fang (施錦芳) said.
In related news, following a formal request by the KMT last month, the committee said it would authorize the party to access NT$55.16 million from a bank account, which was frozen by the committee, to pay KMT employees’ salaries for November and last month, provided that the KMT provides the committee with payroll information.
The request was the first formal application filed by the KMT to seek access to the frozen assets, the committee said, but added that it could not verify the party’s claim for the amount.
The committee is to hold a hearing on Jan. 20 to determine whether the Minsheng Development Foundation (民生建設基金會), the Minchuan Foundation (民權基金會), the Mintsu Foundation (民族基金會) and the National Development Fund (國家發展基金會) are affiliated with the KMT.
The four foundations have received about NT$180 million in donations from Hsinyutai, the committee said, adding that the money would be seized as an ill-gotten asset should it be determined that it is being controlled by the KMT.
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:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching