Dbtel Inc (
The statement came after prosecutors and investigators yesterday opened an investigation into claims of insider trading against Dbtel chairman Michael Mou (
Mou and Kuo were released on bail of NT$3 million (US$90,400) and NT$1 million respectively after being questioned overnight, said Lin Pang-liang (林邦樑), a spokesman of the Taipei Prosecutors' Office, which is handling the investigation.
"We are trying to determine whether they violated rules on securities exchanges or committed accounting fraud," Lin said.
Investigators yesterday searched 12 sites for evidence, including Mou's house, factories and offices of six investment companies linked with Dbtel, Lin said.
Investigators suspect Mou of illegally trading Dbtel shares through the investment companies, which are all chaired by Mou, using inside information, he said.
"We haven't done anything wrong," Mou told a press conference yesterday.
"The allegation of insider trading and appropriation of the company's capital are not true. The company's cash flow is transparent," Mou said.
The six investment companies are Dbtel's major shareholders, and they sold their holdings in order to obtain cash to fund the construction of Dbtel's new headquarters in the Dingpu High-tech Industrial Park (
After a NT$3.8 billion share-sale fell through last year, the company halved the size of its 20,000-ping headquarters, Mou said.
However, Mou declined to answer questions about Dbtel's financial connection to the investment companies, but blamed Dbtel's poor financial results for the investigation.
Dbtel posted consolidated losses of NT$2.6 billion, or NT$3.01 a share, in the first half of the year, dragged down by its Shanghai handset unit, according to the company's statistics submitted to the GRETAI Securities Market.
Dbtel shares yesterday fell to a historical low of NT$4.11 on the over-the-counter GRETAI Securities Market.
After severing its manufacturing agreement with US handset giant Motorola
Inc in 1999, Dbtel shifted its focus to manufacturing own-brand handsets. In
2002, Dbtel was granted the license to sell brand-name mobile phones in the
fast-growing Chinese market, making it the first Taiwanese handset vendor to
enter the mobile-phone market across the Strait.
Dbtel is lost this advantage after its local competitors BenQ Corp (明基)
and Inventec Appliances Corp (英華達) received Beijing's approval in May to
sell branded mobile phones in China, which consumes 80 million handsets a
year.
CAUTIOUS RECOVERY: While the manufacturing sector returned to growth amid the US-China trade truce, firms remain wary as uncertainty clouds the outlook, the CIER said The local manufacturing sector returned to expansion last month, as the official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) rose 2.1 points to 51.0, driven by a temporary easing in US-China trade tensions, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. The PMI gauges the health of the manufacturing industry, with readings above 50 indicating expansion and those below 50 signaling contraction. “Firms are not as pessimistic as they were in April, but they remain far from optimistic,” CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said at a news conference. The full impact of US tariff decisions is unlikely to become clear until later this month
With an approval rating of just two percent, Peruvian President Dina Boluarte might be the world’s most unpopular leader, according to pollsters. Protests greeted her rise to power 29 months ago, and have marked her entire term — joined by assorted scandals, investigations, controversies and a surge in gang violence. The 63-year-old is the target of a dozen probes, including for her alleged failure to declare gifts of luxury jewels and watches, a scandal inevitably dubbed “Rolexgate.” She is also under the microscope for a two-week undeclared absence for nose surgery — which she insists was medical, not cosmetic — and is
GROWING CONCERN: Some senior Trump administration officials opposed the UAE expansion over fears that another TSMC project could jeopardize its US investment Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is evaluating building an advanced production facility in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and has discussed the possibility with officials in US President Donald Trump’s administration, people familiar with the matter said, in a potentially major bet on the Middle East that would only come to fruition with Washington’s approval. The company has had multiple meetings in the past few months with US Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff and officials from MGX, an influential investment vehicle overseen by the UAE president’s brother, the people said. The conversations are a continuation of talks that
CHIP DUTIES: TSMC said it voiced its concerns to Washington about tariffs, telling the US commerce department that it wants ‘fair treatment’ to protect its competitiveness Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday reiterated robust business prospects for this year as strong artificial intelligence (AI) chip demand from Nvidia Corp and other customers would absorb the impacts of US tariffs. “The impact of tariffs would be indirect, as the custom tax is the importers’ responsibility, not the exporters,” TSMC chairman and chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) said at the chipmaker’s annual shareholders’ meeting in Hsinchu City. TSMC’s business could be affected if people become reluctant to buy electronics due to inflated prices, Wei said. In addition, the chipmaker has voiced its concern to the US Department of Commerce
RSS