Switzerland yesterday said that it would restitute to Taiwan nearly one-third of the US$900 million it confiscated over corruption allegations linked to a controversial French frigates sale to Taipei three decades ago.
“In the frigates case, Switzerland will restitute nearly US$266 million to Taiwan,” the Swiss Department of Justice and Police said in a statement.
The money, it said, “was illegal commissions” paid during a US$2.8 billion deal to buy six Lafayette-class frigates in 1991.
Photo: AFP
That deal, which strained French ties with China at the time, was later found to have been awash with hundreds of millions in bribes.
In 2001, Taiwan requested judicial assistance from Switzerland in the expansive corruption case, since much of the ill-gotten money was residing in Swiss bank accounts.
Switzerland had seized about US$900 million “as a preventive measure,” and in 2005 handed Taiwan numerous documents linked to the accounts.
Two years later, Switzerland restituted a first tranche of US$34 million to Taiwan.
Yesterday, the department said that a ruling by a Taiwanese court in late 2019, “confirming the illegal provenance of the funds and ordering their confiscation, opens the door to restitution” of another US$266 million.
However, Switzerland said that the ruling has not “proven that the other blocked funds resulted from corruption, and the sequestration affecting them will be lifted.”
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