■CONSTRUCTION
Chong Hong in probe
Chong Hong Construction Co (長虹建設) chairman Lee Wen-tsao (李文造) and his wife came under investigation on Friday over alleged breach of trust, the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office said. Prosecutors raided Lee’s home and other locations, including the company, said Lin Chin-chun (林錦村), spokesman for the prosecutors’ office. The developer, which builds luxury apartments, said in a stock exchange filing late on Friday that its offices had been searched, but did not give details. Lee and his wife are suspected of buying land to resell to Chang Hong at higher prices between 2004 and last year, Lin said. Chong Hong said it would cooperate in the investigation, adding that its financials and operations would not be affected.
■PROPERTY
Cathay Life buys building
Cathay Financial Holding Co (國泰金控) said on Friday that its insurance unit, Cathay Life Insurance Co (國泰人壽), had bought an office building in Neihu from Chailease Finance Co (中租迪和) for NT$2.82 billion (US$85.57 million), or NT$349,929 per ping (3.3m²). The sum compares with appraisals made by DTZ Debenham Tie Leung (戴德梁行) at NT$2.85 billion and Top Real Estate Appraisal Firm (尚上不動產) at NT$3.82 billion, a stock exchange filing said.
■ENERGY
BP scraps Canada project
British oil company BP said on Friday that it was abandoning plans to build a refinery in eastern Canada. BP has worked for the last 18 months with Canadian firm Irving Oil to study the feasibility of building a refinery in St. John, New Brunswick. The two firms reached the conclusion that “the project was not viable at a time of global economic recession and dampening forecasts for petroleum product demand in North America,” BP said in a statement.
■COMPUTERS
Dell settles in lawsuit
Dell Inc said on Friday it had agreed to settle a federal gender-discrimination class action lawsuit brought by former employees for US$9.1 million. Under the terms of the settlement, Dell said US$5.6 million will be used for payments to class members and for litigation costs. The class is defined as all women employed by Dell in the US for at least one day in a C1 through D3 level position between Feb. 14, 2007, and Dec. 31 last year. Another US$3.5 million will be used to raise C1 to D3-level female employees’ pay to match that of male counterparts. The lawsuit said Dell showed a pattern of gender discrimination in salaries.
■FINANCE
Brown says sector stable
The British banking sector has stabilized but the world still lacks an overall strategy to ensure positive economic momentum, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said on Friday. “I think we’re at a point where the banks have been stabilized,” he told a seminar on reforming international financial institutions.
■GLOBAL ECONOMY
WTO head positive on trade
The global contraction in trade seems to be bottoming out, with Asia showing a rebound, WTO director-general Pascal Lamy said on Friday. But Lamy warned against “excessive optimism” as jobless numbers were still rising. “Although financial markets have recently shown signs of stabilization, and the trade contraction ... seems to [be] bottoming out, it is unclear how and how long it will take us to exit the crisis,” he told delegates of the WTO’s 153-member states.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday obtained the government’s approval to inject an additional US$7.5 billion into its US subsidiary, the Department of Investment Review said in a statement. The department approved TSMC’s application of investing in TSMC Arizona Corp, which is engaged in the manufacturing, sales, testing and design of IC and other semiconductor devices, it said. The latest capital injection follows a US$5 billion investment for TSMC Arizona approved in June. The chipmaker has broken ground on two advanced fabs in Arizona with aggregated investments approved by the department totaling US$24 billion thus far. According to TSMC, the first Arizona
The lethal hack of Hezbollah’s Asian-branded pagers and walkie-talkies has sparked an intense search for the devices’ path, revealing a murky market for older technologies where buyers might have few assurances about what they are getting. While supply chains and distribution channels for higher-margin and newer products are tightly managed, that is not the case for older electronics from Asia where counterfeiting, surplus inventories and complex contract manufacturing deals can sometimes make it impossible to identify the source of a product, analysts and consultants say. The response from the companies at the center of the booby-trapped gadgets that killed 37
FRIENDLY TAKEOVER: While Qualcomm Inc’s proposal to buy some or all of Intel raises the prospect of other competitors, Broadcom Inc is staying on the sidelines Qualcomm Inc has approached Intel Corp to discuss a potential acquisition of the struggling chipmaker, people with knowledge of the matter said, raising the prospect of one of the biggest-ever merger and acquisition deals. California-based Qualcomm proposed a friendly takeover for Intel in recent days, said the sources, who asked not to be identified discussing confidential information. The proposal is for all of the chipmaker, although Qualcomm has not ruled out buying some parts of Intel and selling off others. It is uncertain whether the initial approach would lead to an agreement and any deal is likely to come under close antitrust scrutiny
SECURITY CONCERNS: The proposed ban on Chinese autonomous vehicle software and hardware would go into effect with the 2027 and 2030 model years respectively The US Department of Commerce today is expected to propose prohibiting Chinese software and hardware in connected and autonomous vehicles on US roads due to national security concerns, two sources said. US President Joe Biden’s administration has raised concerns about the collection of data by Chinese companies on US drivers and infrastructure as well as the potential foreign manipulation of vehicles connected to the Internet and navigation systems. The proposed regulation would ban the import and sale of vehicles from China with key communications or automated driving system software or hardware, said the two sources, who declined to be identified because the