The Taiwan High Court on Wednesday upheld the convictions of a former Democratic Progressive Party lawmaker and a second key defendant in the 2003 Sunny Bank loan scandal, handing out prison terms and ordering the confiscation of money that it deemed illegal profits.
The scandal involved the former chairman of Sunny Bank, Chen Shen-hung (陳勝宏), a former lawmaker who is now a DPP Central Standing Committee member, and his brother-in-law Hsueh Tsung-hsien (薛宗賢).
Wednesday’s verdict sentenced Chen to 30 months in prison, fined him NT$2.2 million (US$75,549) and ordered the confiscation of NT$9.95 million.
Hsueh was sentenced to three years and six months in prison, fined NT$4 million and told to repay NT$32.65 million in illegal profits.
The verdict, which ended the second retrial of the case, can still be appealed.
The case against the two men has been winding through the court system for 12 years, with the Supreme Court twice ordering the Taiwan High Court to retry it.
Former DPP lawmaker Hsueh Ling (薛凌) was cleared in the first and second verdicts, and her not guilty verdict was finalized in 2012, with the defense saying she had not known the details of the questionable bank loans made to her younger brother.
Court documents indicate that Hsueh Tsung-hsien worked with two Sunny Bank executives to purchase the Taipei headquarters of the China Daily News, which was owned by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT).
The building had a price tag of more than NT$400 million, and the three men forged documents to purchase the property and to set up four dummy bank accounts, the court found, with prosecutors claiming that Hsueh Tsung-hsien had used the paperwork to conceal his relationship to his sister, who was on the bank’s board at the time.
Hsueh Tsung-hsien then applied to the bank for a NT$470 million loan.
The bank ended up giving him a total of NT$340 million through several loans.
The court found that Chen helped approve the loans during a board meeting that he presided over, despite knowing that the loans contravened Taiwan’s banking regulations, which prohibit loans to “interested parties” having close degree of family and kinship relationship.
Hsueh Tsung-hsien bought the building using the Sunny Bank loans and a NT$300 million personal loan from his sister.
Questions about the legality of the bank loans were raised by government financial regulators in 2006.
However, as Hsueh Tsung-hsien gradually repaid the bank’s loans, the initial court hearings determined that the bank had not suffered any losses from the improperly approved loans.
UNILATERAL MOVES: Officials have raised concerns that Beijing could try to exert economic control over Kinmen in a key development plan next year The Civil Aviation Administration (CAA) yesterday said that China has so far failed to provide any information about a new airport expected to open next year that is less than 10km from a Taiwanese airport, raising flight safety concerns. Xiamen Xiangan International Airport is only about 3km at its closest point from the islands in Kinmen County — the scene of on-off fighting during the Cold War — and construction work can be seen and heard clearly from the Taiwan side. In a written statement sent to Reuters, the CAA said that airports close to each other need detailed advanced
Tropical Storm Fung-Wong would likely strengthen into a typhoon later today as it continues moving westward across the Pacific before heading in Taiwan’s direction next week, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 8am, Fung-Wong was about 2,190km east-southeast of Cape Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan’s southernmost point, moving westward at 25kph and possibly accelerating to 31kph, CWA data showed. The tropical storm is currently over waters east of the Philippines and still far from Taiwan, CWA forecaster Tseng Chao-cheng (曾昭誠) said, adding that it could likely strengthen into a typhoon later in the day. It is forecast to reach the South China Sea
WEATHER Typhoon forming: CWA A tropical depression is expected to form into a typhoon as early as today, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday, adding that the storm’s path remains uncertain. Before the weekend, it would move toward the Philippines, the agency said. Some time around Monday next week, it might reach a turning point, either veering north toward waters east of Taiwan or continuing westward across the Philippines, the CWA said. Meanwhile, the eye of Typhoon Kalmaegi was 1,310km south-southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan’s southernmost point, as of 2am yesterday, it said. The storm is forecast to move through central
Almost a quarter of volunteer soldiers who signed up from 2021 to last year have sought early discharge, the Legislative Yuan’s Budget Center said in a report. The report said that 12,884 of 52,674 people who volunteered in the period had sought an early exit from the military, returning NT$895.96 million (US$28.86 million) to the government. In 2021, there was a 105.34 percent rise in the volunteer recruitment rate, but the number has steadily declined since then, missing recruitment targets, the Chinese-language United Daily News said, citing the report. In 2021, only 521 volunteers dropped out of the military, the report said, citing
RSS