The Taipei District Court yesterday found XPEC Entertainment Inc chairman Aaron Hsu (許金龍) guilty of fraud and sentenced him to 18 years in prison.
It also fined him NT$100 million (US$3.43 million) and seized NT$4.07 billion in his accounts deemed to be illegal profit.
Hsu, 49, violated the Securities Exchange Act (證券交易法) and the Business Entity Accounting Act (商業會計法) by manipulating the stock market, defrauding individual investors who had bought XPEC shares and transferring assets for personal gain, the court said in a statement.
A number of Hsu’s associates and XPEC executives were convicted of colluding with him to manipulate the game developer’s share price as well as a takeover bid by Bai Chi Gan Tou Digital Entertainment Co of Japan in 2016.
Lee Po-heng (李柏衡) and Hsieh Tung-po (謝東波), two former XPEC financial officers, were also convicted, with Lee receiving a 16-month term and Hsieh a two-year suspended sentence.
XPEC legal counsel Pan Yen-chou (潘彥州) received a two-year term and a fine of NT$5 million; another lawyer, Cheng Peng-chi (鄭鵬基), was given a two-year suspended sentence and a NT$3 million fine.
Yang Jui-jen (楊瑞仁), who admitted to wrongdoing during the investigation, was handed a two-year suspended sentence, a fine of NT$5 million and 240 hours of community service.
Yang, a former stockbroker who was found guilty of fraud in the 1994 Waterland Securities case, served 13 years in prison before his release in 2008.
Investigators said that Hsu hired Yang from 2015 to 2016 to work on a scheme to inflate XPEC’s market value.
The ruling can still be appealed.
Four financial executives — Concord Securities chairman Yeh Kung-liang (葉公亮), deputy general manager Lu Su-ling (呂素玲) and manager Lin Yi-lin (林宜霖), as well as Far Eastern International Bank manager Lin Li-chen (林麗珍) — were acquitted.
Citing insufficient evidence, the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office in October last year dropped charges against three independent directors of XPEC: media personality Sisy Chen (陳文茜), former minister of economic affairs Yin Chii-ming (尹啟銘) and former Taipei deputy mayor and former Chinese Nationalist Party legislator Lee Yong-ping (李永萍).
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