Five top executives of BenQ were indicted on May 8 by the Taoyuan Prosecutors' Office for alleged insider trading and money laundering. The indicted include chairman KY Lee, president Sheaffer Lee, vice president Eric Yu and two senior financial executives.
The prosecutors accused that KY Lee, Sheaffer Lee and Eric Yu instructed four company employees to sell a total of 22.35 million undistributed bonus shares for about NT$848 million (US$25.5 million) during the period from September 4, 2002 to February 20, 2006, the Chinese-language Commercial Times cited the prosecutors' indictment as saying in a May 9 report.
The majority of revenues generated from the sale were then transferred to an account of BenQ's overseas branch, Creo Venture, in Malaysia, before the money was remitted back to Taiwan for investment in BenQ shares, the paper noted.
In response, BenQ issued a statement stating that the company was shocked by the indictment and confused by the prosecutors' actions and that the indictment was unacceptable to the company.
The Creo branch has in fact on several occasions distributed bonus shares and other incentives to BenQ's overseas employees, and that fact was not taking into account by prosecutors, the statement said.
Article translated by Steve Shen and edited by Eric Mah
