The Taipei District Court yesterday found in favor of academic Tsuang Ben-jei (莊秉潔) over charges that he had damaged the reputation of Formosa Plastics Group (FPG).
Tsuang, a professor in National Chung Hsing University’s environmental engineering department, told an environmental impact assessment committee meeting in 2011 that the exhaust gas emitted by the group’s naphtha cracker in Mailiao Township (麥寮), Yunlin County, contained heavy metals and carcinogenic substances, resulting in elevated cancer rates among residents in the area.
Saying Tsuang’s remarks had damaged its reputation, the group filed a defamation lawsuit against him with the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office, as well as a civil lawsuit seeking NT$40 million (US$1.34 million) in compensation and a public apology in newspapers.
Prosecutors decided in June last year not to indict Tsuang because he had been invited to the meeting as an expert and his comments concerned public health and environmental protection issues, and were not defamatory.
The district court’s ruling echoed what the prosecutors said a year ago — that his remarks were based on academic research and were made with good intentions, to care for public health.
His remarks were also comments on public affairs and did not undermine the company’s reputation, the ruling said.
The company can appeal the ruling with the Taiwan High Court, the district court said.
Tsuang has won the support of many fellow academics — including former Academia Sinica president Lee Yuan-tseh (李遠哲) — who have signed a petition of support saying the group’s legal actions would have a chilling effect by restricting academic freedom in a democratic society.
Additional reporting by staff writer
TRAFFIC SAFETY RULES: A positive result in a drug test would result in a two-year license suspension for the driver and vehicle, and a fine of up to NT$180,000 The Ministry of Transportation and Communications is to authorize police to conduct roadside saliva tests by the end of the year to deter people from driving while under the influence of narcotics, it said yesterday. The ministry last month unveiled a draft of amended regulations governing traffic safety rules and penalties, which included provisions empowering police to conduct mandatory saliva tests on drivers. While currently rules authorize police to use oral fluid testing kits for signs of drug use, they do not establish penalties for noncompliance or operating procedures for officers to follow, the ministry said. The proposed changes to the regulations require
Taipei, New Taipei City, Keelung and Taoyuan would issue a decision at 8pm on whether to cancel work and school tomorrow due to forecasted heavy rain, Keelung Mayor Hsieh Kuo-liang (謝國樑) said today. Hsieh told reporters that absent some pressing reason, the four northern cities would announce the decision jointly at 8pm. Keelung is expected to receive between 300mm and 490mm of rain in the period from 2pm today through 2pm tomorrow, Central Weather Administration data showed. Keelung City Government regulations stipulate that school and work can be canceled if rain totals in mountainous or low-elevation areas are forecast to exceed 350mm in
EVA Airways president Sun Chia-ming (孫嘉明) and other senior executives yesterday bowed in apology over the death of a flight attendant, saying the company has begun improving its health-reporting, review and work coordination mechanisms. “We promise to handle this matter with the utmost responsibility to ensure safer and healthier working conditions for all EVA Air employees,” Sun said. The flight attendant, a woman surnamed Sun (孫), died on Friday last week of undisclosed causes shortly after returning from a work assignment in Milan, Italy, the airline said. Chinese-language media reported that the woman fell ill working on a Taipei-to-Milan flight on Sept. 22
1.4nm WAFERS: While TSMC is gearing up to expand its overseas production, it would also continue to invest in Taiwan, company chairman and CEO C.C. Wei said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) has applied for permission to construct a new plant in the Central Taiwan Science Park (中部科學園區), which it would use for the production of new high-speed wafers, the National Science and Technology Council said yesterday. The council, which supervises three major science parks in Taiwan, confirmed that the Central Taiwan Science Park Bureau had received an application on Friday from TSMC, the world’s largest contract chipmaker, to commence work on the new A14 fab. A14 technology, a 1.4 nanometer (nm) process, is designed to drive artificial intelligence transformation by enabling faster computing and greater power
RSS