Anti-corruption officers have searched the homes and offices of two former Porsche chiefs and not only the German automaker’s headquarters, news magazine Der Spiegel reported.
The company had said on Thursday that prosecutors with search warrants raided the headquarters of the luxury carmaker and opened a probe against former chief executive Wendelin Wiedeking on insider trading charges.
Quoting a spokeswoman for the Stuttgart prosecutor, Der Spiegel said in its issue to be published today that the private apartments of Wiedeking and former financial director Holger Haerter had also been searched.
It did not say when the searches were carried out.
Wiedeking resigned as Porsche’s chief executive officer last month after failing in his bid to acquire Volkswagen, Europe’s biggest carmaker. Haerter stepped down at the same time.
Die Welt newspaper said the probe by Stuttgart prosecutors was linked to information provided by German banking regulator BaFin after Volkswagen shares soared last October, following reports of its expected acquisition by Porsche.
The project ultimately fell through.
During the Porsche/VW takeover saga, a series of so-called cash settlement options in VW shares earned Porsche billions as the stock climbed in value and were at one point quoted at more than 1,000 euros a share.
That briefly made VW the world’s biggest company by market capitalization.
VW was quoted at 151.47 euros at the market’s close on Friday.
Der Spiegel said, however, that the latest investigation was not focussing on the share’s boom last October, but on the fact that Porsche allegedly tried “with help from Frankfurt’s Maple Bank to stabilize the VW share at a certain level to stop the share price from again fluctuating dangerously.”
Such fluctuations could have led to massive losses for Porsche, which at the time held more than half of VW’s shares as well as options, Der Spiegel said.
Under Wiedeking, Porsche built up a 51 percent stake in the much larger VW and wanted to take full control but the attempt failed and left Porsche squeezed under a huge debt pile. The two firms now plan to merge by 2011 and to overtake Japan’s Toyota to become the world’s biggest car company by 2018.
Nvidia Corp yesterday unveiled its new high-speed interconnect technology, NVLink Fusion, with Taiwanese application-specific IC (ASIC) designers Alchip Technologies Ltd (世芯) and MediaTek Inc (聯發科) among the first to adopt the technology to help build semi-custom artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure for hyperscalers. Nvidia has opened its technology to outside users, as hyperscalers and cloud service providers are building their own cost-effective AI chips, or accelerators, used in AI servers by leveraging ASIC firms’ designing capabilities to reduce their dependence on Nvidia. Previously, NVLink technology was only available for Nvidia’s own AI platform. “NVLink Fusion opens Nvidia’s AI platform and rich ecosystem for
WARNING: From Jan. 1 last year to the end of last month, 89 Taiwanese have gone missing or been detained in China, the MAC said, urging people to carefully consider travel to China Lax enforcement had made virtually moot regulations banning civil servants from making unauthorized visits to China, the Control Yuan said yesterday. Several agencies allowed personnel to travel to China after they submitted explanations for the trip written using artificial intelligence or provided no reason at all, the Control Yuan said in a statement, following an investigation headed by Control Yuan member Lin Wen-cheng (林文程). The probe identified 318 civil servants who traveled to China without permission in the past 10 years, but the true number could be close to 1,000, the Control Yuan said. The public employees investigated were not engaged in national
CAUSE AND EFFECT: China’s policies prompted the US to increase its presence in the Indo-Pacific, and Beijing should consider if this outcome is in its best interests, Lai said China has been escalating its military and political pressure on Taiwan for many years, but should reflect on this strategy and think about what is really in its best interest, President William Lai (賴清德) said. Lai made the remark in a YouTube interview with Mindi World News that was broadcast on Saturday, ahead of the first anniversary of his presidential inauguration tomorrow. The US has clearly stated that China is its biggest challenge and threat, with US President Donald Trump and US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth repeatedly saying that the US should increase its forces in the Indo-Pacific region
ALL TOGETHER: Only by including Taiwan can the WHA fully exemplify its commitment to ‘One World for Health,’ the representative offices of eight nations in Taiwan said The representative offices in Taiwan of eight nations yesterday issued a joint statement reiterating their support for Taiwan’s meaningful engagement with the WHO and for Taipei’s participation as an observer at the World Health Assembly (WHA). The joint statement came as Taiwan has not received an invitation to this year’s WHA, which started yesterday and runs until Tuesday next week. This year’s meeting of the decisionmaking body of the WHO in Geneva, Switzerland, would be the ninth consecutive year Taiwan has been excluded. The eight offices, which reaffirmed their support for Taiwan, are the British Office Taipei, the Australian Office Taipei, the
RSS