Medigen Biotechnology Corp chairman Stanley Chang (張世忠) was released on bail yesterday after being questioned over allegations of insider trading activities involving the company’s COVID-19 vaccine-making subsidiary, Taipei prosecutors said.
Chang and 17 other people were on Thursday taken in for questioning by prosecutors after investigators conducted raids and seized documents at 16 venues, including the Medigen Biotechnology Corp office and the homes of some of the suspects.
Medigen Biotechnology Corp is the parent company of Medigen Vaccine Biologics Corp (MVC), which develops and manufactures the Medigen COVID-19 vaccine, the only domestically made COVID-19 vaccine that received emergency use authorization in Taiwan.
Photo: CNA
The investigation, headed by the Ministry of Justice’s Investigation Bureau and local prosecutors, was originally focused on insider trading allegations against MVC.
However, during that investigation prosecutors were tipped off to look at other practices involving Medigen Biotechnology Corp, including alleged insider trading, irregular trading and financial statement fraud, the Shilin District Prosecutors’ Office said in a statement.
The raids came as prosecutors intensified their probe after finding that corporate insiders passed inside information to relatives or friends to help them make money buying or selling MVC shares from February 2020 to July last year, the bureau said on Thursday.
Chang was released on NT$300,000 bail, while his sister, Chang Tzu-ling (張姿玲), and her husband, Huang Tzu-liang (黃子亮), both members of the parent company’s board of directors, were released on bail of NT$500,000 each, prosecutors said.
Former Medigen Biotechnology Corp chief financial officer Bill Ou (歐朝銓) was released on NT$100,000 bail, prosecutors said.
MVC shares were listed on the over-the-counter market on the Taipei Exchange in April 2018. It started 2020 trading at about NT$19 per share, but skyrocketed to NT$85 per share in mid-July that year as the COVID-19 pandemic took hold around the world.
It fell back to NT$59 the next month and traded at NT$60 to NT$70 for the rest of year.
However, as rumors about its vaccine started to emerge, the stock soared from about NT$72 on Feb. 2 last year to NT$159.59 on Feb. 23, then fell to about NT$115 on Feb. 26 before rising again to NT$211 on April 13.
The stock peaked at NT$280.20 on May 17 last year, tumbled to below NT$130 on June 8 and rebounded again to NT$200 just days later.
The huge price swings, accompanied by seemingly well-timed rumors of whether the vaccine would be approved, led to suspicions of insider trading.
ANOTHER EMERGES: The CWA yesterday said this year’s fourth storm of the typhoon season had formed in the South China Sea, but was not expected to affect Taiwan Tropical Storm Gaemi has intensified slightly as it heads toward Taiwan, where it is expected to affect the country in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. As of 8am yesterday, the 120km-radius storm was 800km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan’s southernmost tip, moving at 9kph northwest, the agency said. A sea warning for Gaemi could be issued tonight at the earliest, it said, adding that the storm is projected to be closest to Taiwan on Wednesday or Thursday. Gaemi’s potential effect on Taiwan remains unclear, as that would depend on its direction, radius and intensity, forecasters said. Former Weather Forecast
As COVID-19 cases in Japan have been increasing for 10 consecutive weeks, people should get vaccinated before visiting the nation, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said. The centers reported 773 hospitalizations and 124 deaths related to COVID-19 in Taiwan last week. CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Director Guo Hung-wei (郭宏偉) on Tuesday said the number of weekly COVID-19 cases reported in Japan has been increasing since mid-May and surpassed 55,000 cases from July 8 to July 14. The average number of COVID-19 patients at Japan’s healthcare facilities that week was also 1.39 times that of the week before and KP.3 is the dominant
The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) working group for Taiwan-related policies is likely to be upgraded to a committee-level body, a report commissioned by the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said. As Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is increasingly likely to upgrade the CCP’s Central Leading Group for Taiwan Affairs, Taiwanese authorities should prepare by researching Xi and the CCP, the report said. At the third plenary session of the 20th Central Committee of the CCP, which ended on Thursday last week, the party set a target of 2029 for the completion of some tasks, meaning that Xi is likely preparing to
US-CHINA TRADE DISPUTE: Despite Beijing’s offer of preferential treatment, the lure of China has dimmed as Taiwanese and international investors move out Japan and the US have become the favored destinations for Taiwanese graduates as China’s attraction has waned over the years, the Ministry of Labor said. According to the ministry’s latest income and employment advisory published this month, 3,215 Taiwanese university graduates from the class of 2020 went to Japan, surpassing for the first time the 2,881 graduates who went to China. A total of 2,300 graduates from the class of 2021 went to the US, compared with the 2,262 who went to China, the document showed. The trend continued for the class of 2023, of whom 1,460 went to Japan, 1,334 went to