The Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday launched an investigation into former Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) executives on suspicion that they had been taking kickbacks from the company’s suppliers.
Prosecutors said a surface mount technology (SMT) committee at Hon Hai is responsible for the company’s and its subsidiaries’ main procurements.
The company suspects that some of the committee members have been receiving kickbacks from Hon Hai’s suppliers for a while, prosecutors said.
Photo: Hou Po-ching, Taipei Times
Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office spokesman Huang Mou-hsin (黃謀信) said prosecutors started looking into the case in January last year after reading reports about the allegation in newspapers, adding that Hon Hai had also filed a lawsuit at the time with the district prosecutors’ office against a number of company managers over the allegation.
Investigators yesterday searched 19 localities, including residences of former Hon Hai executives and suppliers.
Six people are being questioned as suspects, Huang said. They are former Hon Hai engineering department manager Yu Chi-an (游吉安), secretary-general of the SMT committee Deng Chih-hsien (鄧志賢) and senior manager Chen Chih-chuan (陳志川), as well as three suppliers surnamed Wen (溫), Han (韓) and Hau (郝).
The prosecutors are still trying to locate former senior deputy general manager Liao Wan-cheng (廖萬成), Huang said.
According to Huang, the prosecutors suspect Deng of acting as a middleman between the committee members and suppliers, while Liao is suspected of being a key person handling kickback matters.
Deng had previously been kept in custody by the judicial authority of Shenzhen in China during a probe. He was later released.
Huang said the six suspects are being investigated on suspicion of special breach of trust under the Securities Exchange Act (證券交易法).
Questioning was ongoing as of press time last night.
Hon Hai said yesterday in a statement that company auditors have uncovered bribery in September of 2012 and reported it to the authorities for further investigation.
Hon Hai said it will fully cooperate with the investigators.
The company said it has requested company employees to sign affidavits to avoid corruption in the future.
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