The Shilin District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday indicted two Taiwanese and issued a wanted notice for Pete Liu (劉作虎), founder of Shenzhen-based smartphone manufacturer OnePlus Technology Co (萬普拉斯科技), for allegedly contravening the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例) by poaching 70 engineers in Taiwan.
Liu allegedly traveled to Taiwan at the end of 2014 and met with a Taiwanese man surnamed Lin (林) to discuss establishing a mobile software research and development (R&D) team in Taiwan, prosecutors said.
Without approval from the government, Lin, following Liu’s instructions, recruited more than 70 software engineers in Taiwan to develop mobile phone software, and conduct verification and testing for OnePlus, they said.
Photo: Chen Tsai-ling, Taipei Times
Liu, Lin and a woman surnamed Cheng (鄭) in March 2014 established Hong Kong OnePlus Co (香港一加公司) in Hong Kong, prosecutors said.
They set up Hong Kong OnePlus’ Taiwan branch the following year, with Cheng in charge, they said.
In May 2019, the company was renamed Hong Kong Soundna Consulting Co (聲赫公司), they said.
From August 2015 to January 2021, OnePlus wired about US$72.93 million through several Hong Kong companies to the company’s Taiwan branch under the pretext of “revenue from commissioned R&D, and the sale of R&D outputs/assets,” prosecutors said.
The money was used to recruit employees in Taiwan, pay salaries and purchase equipment for operations, they said.
Cheng in her questioning said she was only the nominal head of the company’s Taiwan branch and was solely responsible for tax planning, having no knowledge of the company’s operations and receiving no salary, prosecutors said.
She said the Taiwan branch was in charge of R&D for OnePlus, they added.
Lin said that he was assigned by Liu to serve as R&D supervisor, conducting interviews and leading the team in Taiwan, adding that the branch did not establish its own client network, and all operational directions were decided by Liu.
Witnesses testified that the software developed by the branch was used exclusively for OnePlus and Oppo Mobile Telecommunications Corp (歐珀) smartphones.
Managers were required to regularly report employee attendance and financial status to the company’s headquarters in Shenzhen, China, they said.
Japanese footwear brand Onitsuka Tiger today issued a public apology and said it has suspended an employee amid allegations that the staff member discriminated against a Vietnamese customer at its Taipei 101 store. Posting on the social media platform Threads yesterday, a user said that an employee at the store said that “those shoes are very expensive” when her friend, who is a migrant worker from Vietnam, asked for assistance. The employee then ignored her until she asked again, to which she replied: "We don't have a size 37." The post had amassed nearly 26,000 likes and 916 comments as of this
US President Donald Trump said "it’s up to" Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) what China does on Taiwan, but that he would be "very unhappy" with a change in the "status quo," the New York Times said in an interview published yesterday. Xi "considers it to be a part of China, and that’s up to him what he’s going to be doing," Trump told the newspaper on Wednesday. "But I’ve expressed to him that I would be very unhappy if he did that, and I don’t think he’ll do that," he added. "I hope he doesn’t do that." Trump made the comments in
Tourism in Kenting fell to a historic low for the second consecutive year last year, impacting hotels and other local businesses that rely on a steady stream of domestic tourists, the latest data showed. A total of 2.139 million tourists visited Kenting last year, down slightly from 2.14 million in 2024, the data showed. The number of tourists who visited the national park on the Hengchun Peninsula peaked in 2015 at 8.37 million people. That number has been below 2.2 million for two years, although there was a spike in October last year due to multiple long weekends. The occupancy rate for hotels
A cold surge advisory was today issued for 18 cities and counties across Taiwan, with temperatures of below 10°C forecast during the day and into tonight, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. New Taipei City, Taipei, Taoyuan and Hsinchu, Miaoli and Yilan counties are expected to experience sustained temperatures of 10°C or lower, the CWA said. Temperatures are likely to temporarily drop below 10°C in most other areas, except Taitung, Pingtung, Penghu and Lienchiang (Matsu) counties, CWA data showed. The cold weather is being caused by a strong continental cold air mass, combined with radiative cooling, a process in which heat escapes from
RSS