Two employees of Acer Inc (宏碁) and three other people were charged yesterday by the New Taipei City District Prosecutors’ Office as part of a probe into insider trading of the PC brand’s shares.
Henry Wang (汪島雄), Acer’s public relations chief and acting spokesman, and Acer senior manager Chen Chiung-yuan (陳炯淵) were charged, along with Lo Fang-ju (羅芳汝), an employee at a securities company, her ex-husband Tsao Chin-ming (曹晉銘) and Yang Chin-lung (楊金隆), a professional investor.
Three other suspects were not prosecuted.
DIVESTING
The suspects stand accused of avoiding losses of more than NT$1 million (US$33,195) by divesting their shares in Acer late last year, ahead of a report that the troubled PC vendor had suffered losses of NT$9.94 billion in the third quarter.
After learning about the serious losses at Acer in an internal meeting on Nov. 1 last year, Wang and Chen revealed the information to Lo and Yang, according to the indictment.
VIOLATION
If the shares were traded with knowledge of the company’s losses and change in management, it would constitute a violation of the Securities and Exchange Act (證券交易法).
According to the indictment, Lo, her ex-husband and others sold their Acer shares before the public announcement of the losses and bought the shares back later, illegally profiting by NT$1.37 million.
Yang allegedly made a similar move and accrued more than NT$800,000.
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