Former President Chen Shui-bian’s (???) son-in-law Chao Chien-ming (???) and Chao’s father Chao Yu-chu (???) will be going to jail after the Supreme Court on Thursday rejected their final appeals in a drawn-out insider trading case.
The final ruling came following the fifth retrial of a case mired in years of litigation related to the trading of shares of real-estate developer Taiwan Land Development Corp. (TLDC) in 2005. The case later emerged as a major political scandal in Taiwan.
The Supreme Court upheld the latest Taiwan High Court ruling in October 2020 that convicted Chao Chien-ming and his father of insider trading in violation of the Securities Exchange Act and sentenced them to three years and eight months and four years in jail, respectively.
The ruling was final, and prosecutors said the father and son will be put behind bars in the near future, but did not give a specific date.
Chao and his father had been found guilty of insider trading in all previous trials, though the length of their sentences varied. The many years of litigation stemmed in part from the courts seeking to determine the exact amount of illegal income pocketed by the defendants.
The Supreme Court on Thursday said it made its final ruling after taking into consideration the evidence and laws that were referred to, and did not accept the appeals of the defendants because their testimony was not significant enough to overturn the High Court’s previous verdict.
The insider trading case dates back to 2005.
Chao’s father decided to buy TLDC shares after then-TLDC Chairman Su Te-chien (???) leaked confidential information regarding the approval of a syndicated loan for the company to Chao Yu-chu, Chao Chien-ming and others at a dinner at a Japanese restaurant in Taipei that year.
Chao Yu-chu bought TLDC shares a few days after the meeting but before news of the loan’s approval surfaced and sent TLDC shares significantly higher.
According to the High Court, Chao Yu-chu made illegal gains of NT$35.17 million because of the insider information.
Chao Chien-ming did not buy any shares and did not generate any illegal gains, but the court found him guilty for sharing information and coordinating insider trading activity with his father and others involved in the scheme.
Thursday’s ruling also upheld sentences of three years and eight months for Su and four years and four months for another real-estate developer involved in the case, then-Kuan Pin Company President Yu Shih-i (???), who made NT$66.47 million through the scheme, the court found.
Source: Focus Taiwan News Channel