Former premier Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) and his legal team yesterday said they would launch a civil action lawsuit to seek NT$30 billion (US$984 million) in punitive damages against Ting Hsin International Group (頂新國際集團), which is at the center of the nation’s latest cooking oil scandal.
Hsieh also demanded that the government immediately freeze assets and properties belonging to the Wei (魏) family, owners of Ting Hsin, and those of the company’s senior executives.
Hsu Hui-feng (許惠峰), a member of the legal team, said that President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration has failed to take legal action against the Wei family and Ting Hsin, so they have to launch the lawsuit on behalf of consumers.
“We will file a civil action case, and urge members of the public to join us as plaintiffs. We will also seek state compensation for damage to our health,” Hsu said. “We are also launching a criminal lawsuit, so the Wei brothers will receive legal punishment and not escape their responsibility.”
“The Ma administration has acted as though it had nothing to do with the food scandal. Taiwanese can see that this incompetent government has failed to safeguard food safety, and consumers have been eating food that can cause illness,” Hsu added.
Hsieh, a member of the Democratic Progressive Party, gave the government a five-day grace period at a press conference last week, asking the administration to freeze assets belonging to the Wei family to prevent them from transferring assets out of the nation.
At the time, Hsieh said a legal attestation letter had been sent to Premier Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) requesting that the government freeze the assets and shares owned by the Wei brothers in the Taipei 101 skyscraper within five days.
Saying that Taiwan has a very high incidence of assorted liver and kidney diseases among the population, Hsieh said the NT$30 billion in compensation he is seeking from Ting Hsin would go into creating a medical treatment fund for consumers who developed liver and kidney damage, as well as other health conditions and illnesses, that are likely due to eating “harmful products” from the group over the years.
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