Financial Crime Could be Sentenced with Life Imprisonment as Severest Punishment
E020919Y8 Oct. 2002（E38）
The Government is going to put teeth into the fighting against grave financial crimes. The multi-agency “Anti-Financial Crime Work Team” has resolved to increase the severest punishment on such grave financial crimes as hollowing-out, misappropriation and insider trading to life imprisonment. The amendments to relevant laws include ten major agreements in increasing the punishment on the enterprises doctoring the book, the company’s responsible person defined in the Business Registration Law and the certified public accountant defined in the Accountancy Law.
Additionally, in order to effectively attack the wrongful acts such as hollowing-out of assets and money laundry by criminal syndicates of forged cards, the Work Team will authorize the competent financial authorities such as financial service authorities and Securities and Futures Commission to report it to the prosecutor immediately once they find any suspected money laundry, so as to enable the prosecutor to frozen the defendant’s property and restrict the defendant from departing at appropriate time to perpetuate the illegal assets in the crime.
The other important resolutions also include that: “the administrative penalties shall be raised; the court shall prolong the term of imprisonment commutable to a fine if the concerned party cannot afford or refuses to pay the fine imposed on a grave financial crime; where the illegal gains amount to a “specific amount”, the penalties shall be raised; the large courts shall establish “special courts” specializing in grave financial criminal cases, while the small courts shall designate specialized staff to handle such cases; the financial staff’s responsibility shall be strengthened, such as carrying out financial inspection, et al.”.
Source: Liberty Times 09/19/2002
