Gary Wang: 28 years

Prosecutors have asked for 28 years in the case of Gary Wang, yet another in a long line of businessmen who allegedly regarded their companies as personal playgrounds, wrecking the lives of thousands in the process. Wang's father, head of the once-powerful Rebar group, is on the run in the US as a result of that group's collapse (my loong article on the Rebar case)(another long post on financial regulation). Taiwan News has the call:

Taipei prosecutors indicted Eastern Multimedia Group Chairman Gary Wang (王令麟) and 31 others yesterday on charges of committing financial crimes that allegedly netted Wang and his family NT$41.2 billion in illegal gains from 1998 to 2006.

Wang, suspected to have masterminded the high profile crimes, should be put behind bars for 28 years and fined NT$1 billion, prosecutors suggested in a written indictment.

"Prosecutors specified the 28-year imprisonment for Wang based on clear evidence they have in hand proving Wang and his accomplices premeditated the crime," said Fred Lin (林錦村), spokesman for the Taipei Prosecutors Office.

Once the most successful media tycoon in Taiwan, Wang's indictment yesterday made Taiwan judicial history for the number of crimes Wang was accused of committing.

Wang, who was taken into custody June 17, has violated nine laws, prosecutors said: the Securities Exchange Act; the Banking Act; the Law Against Accepting Bribes; the Companies and Corporations Act; the Government Procurement Law; the Insurance Law; the Act Governing Bills Financing Business, and the Commercial Account Law.

They added that Wang also violated criminal laws by committing fraud, forgery and breach of trust when he collaborated with family members, relatives and subordinates to embezzle funds of companies under his group and the Rebar Group, which was founded by his fugitive father Wang You-theng (王又曾).

The senior Wang was one of the most powerful businessmen in Taiwan, a former member of the Central Standing Committee of the KMT, with family members sitting on the boards of over thirty companies. Eastern Multimedia, Taiwan's largest media group, was a reliably pro-Blue media outlet. The major issue with the indictment, according to AP, was a sale to the Carlyle Group in the US:

Taipei Prosecutors' Office spokesman Lin Ching-tsun said Gary Wang, chairman of the Eastern Multimedia Group, made illegal profits from the sale of a majority stake of a cable operator under the group to the U.S.-based Carlyle Group.

Taiwanese conglomerates are run by families, and Wang's wife and children were also indicted as well. Although the article doesn't really mention it, sadly, thousands of ordinary workers lost pensions and investments when Rebar crumbled.

[Taiwan]