France may have to pay Taiwan US$600 million (476 million euros) in fines because of illegal commissions that massively inflated the price of warships sold to Taipei in 1991, Le Figaro reported yesterday, citing a public prosecutor's office report to Justice Minister Dominique Perben.
The Taiwan government filed a lawsuit in November claiming illicit commission payments breached the terms of the frigate construction contract awarded to Thomson-CSF (now Thales SA) the newspaper reported.
Taipei paid more than FF16 billion (2.44 billion euros) for the six Lafayette class frigates, and judicial investigations have since revealed that around a third of that was spent on a complex lobbying operation to secure the deal run by Thomson.
The report drawn up by the Paris prosecutor's office and handed over to the Ministry of Justice on Jan. 15 warned that France is financially liable because of a clause in the contract that stipulated that if commissions were found to have been paid the amount should be deducted from the sale price.
The public prosecutor's report said France may be liable because it acted as guarantor for the frigate contract, Le Figaro said.
Magistrates Renaud van Ruymbeke and Dominique de Talance, who advised the public prosecutor, are about to make their fourth application to successive governments for the lifting of the official secrets act so they might investigate the illicit commissions paid to secure the contract, the paper said.
Vice Minister Hsieh Wen-ting (謝文定) yesterday declined to comment on the report, but only said he needed some time to follow the whole situation.
WANG RELEASED: A police investigation showed that an organized crime group allegedly taught their clients how to pretend to be sick during medical exams Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) and 11 others were released on bail yesterday, after being questioned for allegedly dodging compulsory military service or forging documents to help others avoid serving. Wang, 33, was catapulted into stardom for his role in the coming-of-age film Our Times (我的少女時代). Lately, he has been focusing on developing his entertainment career in China. The New Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office last month began investigating an organized crime group that is allegedly helping men dodge compulsory military service using falsified documents. Police in New Taipei City Yonghe Precinct at the end of last month arrested the main suspect,
Eleven people, including actor Darren Wang (王大陸), were taken into custody today for questioning regarding the evasion of compulsory military service and document forgery, the New Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office said. Eight of the people, including Wang, are suspected of evading military service, while three are suspected of forging medical documents to assist them, the report said. They are all being questioned by police and would later be transferred to the prosecutors’ office for further investigation. Three men surnamed Lee (李), Chang (張) and Lin (林) are suspected of improperly assisting conscripts in changing their military classification from “stand-by
LITTORAL REGIMENTS: The US Marine Corps is transitioning to an ‘island hopping’ strategy to counterattack Beijing’s area denial strategy The US Marine Corps (USMC) has introduced new anti-drone systems to bolster air defense in the Pacific island chain amid growing Chinese military influence in the region, The Telegraph reported on Sunday. The new Marine Air Defense Integrated System (MADIS) Mk 1 is being developed to counter “the growing menace of unmanned aerial systems,” it cited the Marine Corps as saying. China has constructed a powerful defense mechanism in the Pacific Ocean west of the first island chain by deploying weapons such as rockets, submarines and anti-ship missiles — which is part of its anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) strategy against adversaries — the
Former Taiwan People’s Party chairman Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) may apply to visit home following the death of his father this morning, the Taipei Detention Center said. Ko’s father, Ko Cheng-fa (柯承發), passed away at 8:40am today at the Hsinchu branch of National Taiwan University Hospital. He was 94 years old. The center said Ko Wen-je was welcome to apply, but declined to say whether it had already received an application. The center also provides psychological counseling to people in detention as needed, it added, also declining to comment on Ko Wen-je’s mental state. Ko Wen-je is being held in detention as he awaits trial
RSS