The Ministry of Economic Affairs yesterday approved an application by some individual and institutional shareholders of Tatung Co (大同) to hold an extraordinary shareholders’ meeting to elect a new board of directors, a month after the ministry deemed Tatung’s June 30 shareholders’ meeting invalid and rejected registering the board directors elected at that meeting.
“We have determined that Tatung chairwoman Lin Kuo Wen-yen (林郭文艷) contravened the law, as she abused her role as the head of the board and gravely infringed on the rights of shareholders,” Department of Commerce Director-General May Lee (李鎂) told a news conference in Taipei.
Under Lin Kuo’s instructions, Tatung blocked several shareholders, who collectively hold a 53 percent stake in the company, from voting at the June 30 annual general meeting on accusations that they received funding from Chinese investors.
Photo: Huang Pei-chun, Taipei Times
Lee criticized Lin Kuo for abusing her power, saying it is not up to a company to decide whether shareholders have contravened the law, but the authorities.
Lin Kuo has contravened articles 179 and 198 of the Company Act (公司法), both of which relating to the voting rights of shareholders, while the Financial Supervisory Commission on July 14 also found Tatung to have contravened Article 39 of the Securities and Exchanges Act (證券交易法), Lee said.
As the existing board is not legally capable of calling a shareholders’ meeting, the ministry said it therefore approved the petition by some rebel shareholders to hold an extraordinary meeting by the end of November to elect a new board, she said.
Some of the rebel shareholders in a joint statement thanked the authorities for approving their petition and vowed to hold a fair and open meeting soon.
“All shareholders’ rights will be equally respected. One share, one vote,” the petition said.
TECH BOOST: New TSMC wafer fabs in Arizona are to dramatically improve US advanced chip production, a report by market research firm TrendForce said With Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) pouring large funds into Arizona, the US is expected to see an improvement in its status to become the second-largest maker of advanced semiconductors in 2027, Taipei-based market researcher TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) said in a report last week. TrendForce estimates the US would account for a 21 percent share in the global advanced integrated circuit (IC) production market by 2027, sharply up from the current 9 percent, as TSMC is investing US$65 billion to build three wafer fabs in Arizona, the report said. TrendForce defined the advanced chipmaking processes as the 7-nanometer process or more
China’s Huawei Technologies Co (華為) plans to start mass-producing its most advanced artificial intelligence (AI) chip in the first quarter of next year, even as it struggles to make enough chips due to US restrictions, two people familiar with the matter said. The telecoms conglomerate has sent samples of the Ascend 910C — its newest chip, meant to rival those made by US chipmaker Nvidia Corp — to some technology firms and started taking orders, the sources told Reuters. The 910C is being made by top Chinese contract chipmaker Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯) on its N+2 process, but a lack
Who would not want a social media audience that grows without new content? During the three years she paused production of her short do-it-yourself (DIY) farmer’s lifestyle videos, Chinese vlogger Li Ziqi (李子柒), 34, has seen her YouTube subscribers increase to 20.2 million from about 14 million. While YouTube is banned in China, her fan base there — although not the size of YouTube’s MrBeast, who has 330 million subscribers — is close to 100 million across the country’s social media platforms Douyin (抖音), Sina Weibo (新浪微博) and Xiaohongshu (小紅書). When Li finally released new videos last week — ending what has
OPEN SCIENCE: International collaboration on math and science will persevere even if the incoming Trump administration imposes strict controls, Nvidia’s CEO said Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said on Saturday that global cooperation in technology would continue even if the incoming US administration imposes stricter export controls on advanced computing products. US president-elect Donald Trump, in his first term in office, imposed restrictions on the sale of US technology to China citing national security — a policy continued under US President Joe Biden. The curbs forced Nvidia, the world’s leading maker of chips used for artificial intelligence (AI) applications, to change its product lineup in China. The US chipmaking giant last week reported record-high quarterly revenue on the back of strong AI chip