Medigen Biotechnology Corp chairman Stanley Chang (張世忠) was released on bail yesterday after being questioned over allegations of insider trading activities involving the company’s COVID-19 vaccine-making subsidiary, Taipei prosecutors said.
Chang and 17 other people were on Thursday taken in for questioning by prosecutors after investigators conducted raids and seized documents at 16 venues, including the Medigen Biotechnology Corp office and the homes of some of the suspects.
Medigen Biotechnology Corp is the parent company of Medigen Vaccine Biologics Corp (MVC), which develops and manufactures the Medigen COVID-19 vaccine, the only domestically made COVID-19 vaccine that received emergency use authorization in Taiwan.
Photo: CNA
The investigation, headed by the Ministry of Justice’s Investigation Bureau and local prosecutors, was originally focused on insider trading allegations against MVC.
However, during that investigation prosecutors were tipped off to look at other practices involving Medigen Biotechnology Corp, including alleged insider trading, irregular trading and financial statement fraud, the Shilin District Prosecutors’ Office said in a statement.
The raids came as prosecutors intensified their probe after finding that corporate insiders passed inside information to relatives or friends to help them make money buying or selling MVC shares from February 2020 to July last year, the bureau said on Thursday.
Chang was released on NT$300,000 bail, while his sister, Chang Tzu-ling (張姿玲), and her husband, Huang Tzu-liang (黃子亮), both members of the parent company’s board of directors, were released on bail of NT$500,000 each, prosecutors said.
Former Medigen Biotechnology Corp chief financial officer Bill Ou (歐朝銓) was released on NT$100,000 bail, prosecutors said.
MVC shares were listed on the over-the-counter market on the Taipei Exchange in April 2018. It started 2020 trading at about NT$19 per share, but skyrocketed to NT$85 per share in mid-July that year as the COVID-19 pandemic took hold around the world.
It fell back to NT$59 the next month and traded at NT$60 to NT$70 for the rest of year.
However, as rumors about its vaccine started to emerge, the stock soared from about NT$72 on Feb. 2 last year to NT$159.59 on Feb. 23, then fell to about NT$115 on Feb. 26 before rising again to NT$211 on April 13.
The stock peaked at NT$280.20 on May 17 last year, tumbled to below NT$130 on June 8 and rebounded again to NT$200 just days later.
The huge price swings, accompanied by seemingly well-timed rumors of whether the vaccine would be approved, led to suspicions of insider trading.
More than half of the bamboo vipers captured in Tainan in the past few years were found in the city’s Sinhua District (新化), while other districts had smaller catches or none at all. Every year, Tainan captures about 6,000 snakes which have made their way into people’s homes. Of the six major venomous snakes in Taiwan, the cobra, the many-banded krait, the brown-spotted pit viper and the bamboo viper are the most frequently captured. The high concentration of bamboo vipers captured in Sinhua District is puzzling. Tainan Agriculture Bureau Forestry and Nature Conservation Division head Chu Chien-ming (朱健明) earlier this week said that the
NAMING SPAT: The foreign ministry called on Denmark to propose an acceptable solution to the erroneous nationality used for Taiwanese on residence permits Taiwan has revoked some privileges for Danish diplomatic staff over a Danish permit that lists “Taiwan” as “China,” Eric Huang (黃鈞耀), head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Department of European Affairs, told a news conference in Taipei yesterday. Reporters asked Huang whether the Danish government had responded to the ministry’s request that it correct the nationality on Danish residence permits of Taiwanese, which has been listed as “China” since 2024. Taiwan’s representative office in Denmark continues to communicate with the Danish government, and the ministry has revoked some privileges previously granted to Danish representatives in Taiwan and would continue to review
The first bluefin tuna of the season, brought to shore in Pingtung County and weighing 190kg, was yesterday auctioned for NT$10,600 (US$333.5) per kilogram, setting a record high for the local market. The auction was held at the fish market in Donggang Fishing Harbor, where the Siaoliouciou Island-registered fishing vessel Fu Yu Ching No. 2 delivered the “Pingtung First Tuna” it had caught for bidding. Bidding was intense, and the tuna was ultimately jointly purchased by a local restaurant and a local company for NT$10,600 per kilogram — NT$300 ,more than last year — for a total of NT$2.014 million. The 67-year-old skipper
China has reserved offshore airspace over the Yellow Sea and East China Sea from March 27 to May 6, issuing alerts that are usually used to warn of military exercises, although no such exercises have been announced, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on Sunday. Reserving such a large area for 40 days without explanation is an “unusual step,” as military exercises normally only last a few days, the paper said. The alerts, known as notice to air missions (NOTAMs), “are intended to inform pilots and aviation authorities of temporary airspace hazards or restrictions,” the article said. The airspace reserved in the alert
RSS