The Taichung branch of the Taiwan High Court yesterday overturned an earlier not-guilty ruling for former Ting Hsin Group (頂新集團) senior executive Wei Ying-chun (魏應充) and sentenced him to 15 years in jail for his part in a tainted cooking oil scandal exposed in 2015.
The court found Wei and three other former executives of Ting Hsin and its affiliates — Chen Mao-chia (陳茂嘉), Chang Mei-feng (常梅峰) and Yang Chen-yi (楊振益) — guilty of fraud and contraventions of the Act Governing Food Safety and Sanitation (食品安全衛生管理法).
Chen was handed a six-and-a-half year sentence, with an additional five-year term that can be commuted to a fine, while Chang received a five-and-a-half year sentence, with an additional three-year term that can be commuted to a fine, and Yang was given a seven-year sentence, with an additional 18-month term that can be commuted to a fine.
Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times
The court also imposed a fine of NT$250 million (US$8.44 million) on Ting Hsin for its role in the scandal.
It was the second ruling in the case and can be appealed.
Ting Hsin’s legal team, headed by attorney Yu Ming-hsien (余明賢), said that it would file an appeal.
“I cannot accept this ruling. The court did not consider most of the evidence we presented,” Yu quoted Wei as saying in a statement. “I am very disappointed about such a heavy punishment for things that I did not do. We will certainly appeal, as I am innocent of the charges.”
The decision was widely hailed by consumer groups and food safety advocates, although many people were displeased that the four would be permitted to pay fines instead of serving part of their prison terms and that the punishment was less than the maximum 30-year sentence for breaching food safety laws sought by prosecutors.
Amid a public furor over a series of tainted food scandals from 2013 to 2015, the Changhua District Court’s original not-guilty ruling in November 2015 sparked a firestorm of outcry and protest, with much criticism directed at the judges.
The key to overturning the first ruling was a determination by the High Court judges that the base material for the cooking oil was intended for animal feed, which the company processed with unapproved additives, invalidating Ting Hsin’s claim that the final product was safe for human consumption.
“Ting Hsin imported the base material from a Vietnamese company, which provided a certification document by [Vietnamese inspection service provider] Vinacontrol that lacked qualification standards to indicate the oil was safe for human consumption,” the High Court ruling said. “Ting Hsin claimed it adhered to Taiwan’s hygiene and health standards for processing fats and cooking oil, but that does not prove the final product was safe for human consumption.”
“In the simplest terms, what humans eat is different from what animals eat. You cannot take animal feed and pass it off as food for humans,” Taichung High Administrative Court Chief Judge Chiang Te-chien (江德千) said, explaining the ruling. “Even if animal feed is processed and refined, you cannot say it is safe for human consumption.”
“When processing or manufacturing food, the use of additives not approved by government agencies can be deemed as falsifying or adulterating the product, which contravenes provisions of the Act Governing Food Safety and Sanitation, regardless of whether the product is safe for human consumption,” he said.
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