The Taiwan High Court on Wednesday acquitted former CTBC Financial Holding Co vice chairman Jeffrey Koo Jr (辜仲諒), reversing guilty decisions in the first and second rulings.
Former Chinatrust Financial chief financial officer Perry Chang (張明田) and former CTBC Bank chief financial manager Lin Hsiang-hsi (林祥曦) were also acquitted of charges related to the Red Fire Development Co financial scandal, a case that has dragged on for 15 years.
The ruling can still be appealed, although the High Prosecutors’ Office said that a decision would be made after it reviews the latest ruling and court documents.
Photo: Chang Chia-ming, Taipei Times
CTBC Financial officials said in a statement that they respect the High Court’s ruling.
“We are thankful that the justice system has investigated and clarified the facts of the case, clearing the names of the people involved, upholding justice and protecting human rights,” the statement said.
Koo in a separate statement released through his lawyer thanked the judges for restoring his good name.
“Koo firmly believes that he and the other defendants did not take any action to harm CTBC Financial,” his statement said. “That was why Koo returned from Japan to be at the trials.”
“The trials have been ongoing for more than 10 years, partly due to a difference in interpretation of the law by the prosecution and the defense,” it said. “The High Court followed the instructions and interpretation of the Supreme Court, and the judges found the defendants not guilty, so we hope the courts would no longer pursue such legal disputes.”
Taipei prosecutors in 2006 indicted Koo, Chang and Lin — as well as former CTBC Financial chief compliance officer Teng Yen-tun (鄧彥敦), who was acquitted in a retrial in 2018 — of making NT$1.3 billion (US$46.51 million at the current exchange rate) in illegal profit.
The four were charged with breach of trust, embezzlement and other contraventions of the Securities and Exchange Act (證券交易法) and the Banking Act (銀行法).
From 2004 to 2007, Koo and the other defendants transferred large amounts of money to Red Fire Development, an offshore shell company, reportedly set up by Koo with an address in Hong Kong and registered in the British Virgin Islands, prosecutors said at the time.
Of those funds, NT$27.5 billion was used to purchase a 9.9 percent stake in Mega Financial Holding Co, but the transactions were not approved by CTBC Financial’s board, prosecutors said.
Koo, who was CTBC Bank chairman and CTBC Financial deputy chairman at the time, was responsible for ordering the transfers, prosecutors said.
In the first ruling in October 2010, the Taipei District Court found the defendants guilty, handing Koo a nine-year prison term, which he appealed.
The High Court in May 2013 handed Koo a heavier term of nine years, eight months, and fined him NT$150 million.
However, while the High Court in a retrial in 2018 found the defendants, apart from Teng, guilty, it reduced Koo’s sentence to three years, six months, while Chang and Lin were sentenced to four years and two years respectively.
Koo — the scion of the Koo family, which controls CTBC Financial — is chairman of the CTBC Charity Foundation, owner of the CTBC Brothers baseball team, and is chairman of baseball’s national body.
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