Officials from the Fair Trade Commission (FTC,
"We dispatched personnel to the south to investigate the allegations two weeks ago. We've collected evidence proving that certain businessmen violated the law," Chang En-sheng (張恩生), deputy director of the first section in charge of service industry at the FTC, said. "If this evidence can be further confirmed, the violators will be punished according to regulations in the Fair Trade Law."
Chang's comments came amid continuing clamor from legislators over the alleged monopolization of Taiwan's cable TV market.
Legislators and independent cable operators alleged yesterday that the FTC had turned a deaf ear to complaints about uncompetitive practices in local cable TV operations.
However, FTC statistics show that it has punished cable TV operators in 28 cases so far, with fines totalling NT$32.5 million.
But lawmakers said the government should do more to curb what they term a virtual monopoly in the cable TV market.
Citing statistics provided by independent operators, DPP legislator Tsai Huang-lang (
"The system operators under the banners of the two conglomerates have already broken the law," he said.
The conglomerates Tsai referred to are the Rebar Corp's Eastern Multimedia (Eastern) and United Communications of the Koo's Group (United), two of Taiwan's largest and most powerful communications giants.
Statistics provided by independent operators show that of 94 operators in Taiwan, 25 are run by Eastern or its affiliates and 32 by the United, while another 34 are independent.
But officials from the Government Information Office (GIO) yesterday said that independent operators have been fudging the numbers.
"Everyone knows that the number of current cable TV system operators is less than 94," C.J. Chang (
GIO statistics show that of the 74 licensed system operators that have registered with the office, Eastern controls 13, while United runs 12.
The number of system operations controlled by each of the conglomerates has not exceeded the legal ceiling of one-third of the national market, Chang said. Therefore, he said, the FTC was not entitled to inspect what critics have often dubbed a "horizontal monopoly."
But lawmakers said they have weapons to fight against the monopoly -- including amending the cable broadcasting and television law to reduce the ceiling for individual system operators from the current one-third to one-fifth.
Article 21 of the law states that the number of system operators shall not exceed one-third of the total number of system operations in the nation.
The system operators refers also to their affiliates and their directly or indirectly controlled system operators.
DPP legislator Fang Sun-lu (范巽綠) said that when the Legislative Yuan amended the law in 1999, her colleagues were already engaged in a heated debate over the ceiling for individual system operators. Fang said since the existing regulation failed to curb the growth of monopolies, the Legislative Yuan must amend the related article.
Tsai said he has presented a draft proposal of the amendments and they have won support from dozens of legislators.
Meanwhile, Wang Te-ming (王德明), consumer ombudsman at the Cabinet-level Consumer Protection Commission (消費者保護委員會), warned consumers to pay attention to the content of the fixed-patterned contract when renewing their contracts with local cable TV companies, in order to ensure their own rights.
"It's important to carry out the fix-patterned contracts. Everything on the contract should be written clearly," Wang said.
Taiwan’s Lee Chia-hao (李佳豪) on Sunday won a silver medal at the All England Open Badminton Championships in Birmingham, England, a career best. Lee, 25, took silver in the final of the men’s singles against world No. 1 Shi Yuqi (石宇奇) of China, who won 21-17, 21-19 in a tough match that lasted 51 minutes. After the match, the Taiwanese player, who ranks No. 22 in the world, said it felt unreal to be challenging an opponent of Shi’s caliber. “I had to be in peak form, and constantly switch my rhythm and tactics in order to score points effectively,” he said. Lee got
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