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Mega woes lead Taiwanese regulator to fall on his sword

Chris Hamblin Editor London 4 October 2016

Mega woes lead Taiwanese regulator to fall on his sword

Ding Kung-Wha, the chairman of Taiwan’s Financial Supervisory Commission, has resigned from his post in the wake of the $180 million fine levied on Mega Financial Holding by the New York Department of Financial Services.

Leaving no discernible successor so far, the chief regulator has been beset by criticism in recent months, not least for his handling of the scandal-struck XPEC Entertainment, a game development firm that took part in a failed acquisition deal that did not comply with the Securities and Exchange Act. Last month, police raided XPEC’s headquarters and its chief executive’s home, while 50 people were summoned to the Taipei District Prosecutors' Office about the scandal, according to news reports. Ding’s agency was blamed for not using its regulatory powers to intervene before matters came to a head.

Ding seems not to have been directly responsible for any failing of his regulatory body as no suspicious transactions went through, or originated from, Taiwan. The American prosecutors’ main objection, as covered elsewhere on Compliance Matters, was to Mega Financial’s dealings with Panama. Reuters reports that Ding met various politicians last week to discuss 174 suspicious transactions relating to 76 accounts that went through New York and were therefore the concern of the NYDFS.

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