The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday fined Fubon Life Insurance Co (富邦人壽) NT$12.6 million (US$410,664) over breaches related to inadequate documentation of the company’s business practices.
During a probe into the insurer toward the end of 2016, the commission uncovered serious contraventions of Fubon Life Insurance’s internal controls when it could not provide e-mail records related to trading of foreign stocks using its discretionary account.
When asked to provide e-mail records from 2010 to 2012, the insurer said that the files had been deleted, the commission said.
As the company could not provide reasons that the files were deleted, the commission said it suspected the insurer was attempting to destroy or hide information related to aspects of its investments.
The insurer is barred from taking on new foreign stock positions using its discretionary account, the commission said, adding that Fubon Life Insurance’s documentation of its selection process for investment banks was unsatisfactory and it lacked documentation regarding increases in portfolio positions.
Fubon Life Insurance used the same investment bank to manage its discretionary account from 2010 and 2016, the commission said.
The insurer was also fined for irregularities in a case where it had served as a consultant in a NT$60 million land development and construction project in 2014, during which lapses in protocol had risked the confidentiality of competing bids, the commission said.
A bid was concluded without a winner and the company increased its minimum price when issuing a new contract, which was later awarded to an affiliate company, the commission said.
Other irregularities, including inadequate transparency and dealings between interested parties, were found in a number of bids for contracts for construction, wireless networking and building maintenance, the commission said.
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