Kaohsiung district prosecutors yesterday indicted former National Assembly member and lawmaker Wang Shih-hsiung (
Prosecutors say Wang, while chairman of the board for a southern conglomerate, made illegal profits by knowingly taking advantage of the company's financial situation. Wang has denied the charges.
Wang served as the board chairman of the Top Group (
In March, Wang and the general manager of the Top Department Store, Lin Yi-chen (
The prosecution said in the indictment Wang and Lin were aware that the store had debts exceeding its assets and had no debt-paying ability before they held the sale, and finally failed to settle bills with the 249 companies in the closing sale worth more than NT$157 million.
The indictment also says Wang, knowing that the Top Construction and Development had no debt-paying ability and the Top Hotel was also in crisis, used a check from the construction company and shares in the hotel as collateral to borrow NT$30 million.
The creditor sued Wang after the check bounced and the hotel closed, the indictment says.
Wang denied he had any criminal intention and said the failures in paying debts were due to a cash crunch.
The indictment came as another blow to the once powerful but rapidly falling clan of southern Taiwan tycoons. Wang's father and head of the clan, Wang Yu-yun (王玉雲), was indicted in June in an illegal bank loan case.
During the heyday of the Wang clan at the turn of the 1980s and 1990s, the younger Wang and his elder brother were both legislators; their father, a former Kaohsiung mayor, was a national policy adviser to the president and their uncle a Control Yuan member. The family has owned and run a wide variety of businesses.
But, in recent years the Wangs' relations with the KMT soured and family members lost several local elections.
Its businesses were also showing signs of weakness. This June Wang Yu-yun, president of the family's new flagship business Chung Shing Bank (
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