Seven Financial Laws Passed, Financial Crimes will be Handled by the Professional Court.

The Legislative Yuan passed the amendments of seven financial laws yesterday, (29) which bestow the court to establish the court of financial crimes or the rights to appoint professionals to handle the cases.  The collection of evidence will also be transferred to the suspects who receive the earnings of financial crimes.

 

The seven laws include, “Bank Law”, “Securities Exchange Act”, “Insurance Law”, “Financial Holding Company Act”, “Securities Financial Management Law”, “Trust Enterprise Law” and “Cooperative Law”.  To avoid the perpetrator of serious financial crimes from transferring the property so as to cover his or her criminal earnings, “financial institutes may petition the court to revoke the transference of the criminal’s property with or without charge.”  Meanwhile, the responsibilities of collecting evidence will be transferred to the receiver of the criminal earnings from financial institutes.  Such regulation will greatly complicate the transference of criminal earnings.

 

In addition, on account that private credit loan companies are often mistaken as banks due to their use of names of banks, Paragraph 3, Article 20 of Bank Law is hence amended and stipulates “companies other than banks are not allowed to use commercial banks, professional banks, trust investment or any names that shall confuse them with real banks.”  Violators will be punished with imprisonment for not more than three years, in lieu of a fine not more than 5 million NT.

 

Also, to effectively put a stop to criminal incidents occurred through using dummy accounts of homeless people, Paragraph 2, Article 45 of Bank Law is amended and stipulates “banks shall be liable for the management of saving accounts.  To the accounts of suspiciously illegal or apparently irregular trades, the banks may suspect the deposit, withdrawal and remittance of the money.”  (2005.4)

CYJ/CHT