A lawyer at Taiwan’s largest law firm, Lee & Li, just made off with NT$3 billion of a client’s money. Apparently he was employed there since 1989 and worked in their Investments department. According to Bloomberg, the guy made an unauthorized sale of a client’s stock (a US tech company), asked for a 12 month leave of absence and disappeared with the money.
Despite other shenanigans over the years, Lee & Li has long considered itself to be superior to other firms but this might actually tarnish their reputation. One senior partner was quoted as saying the loss of money won’t affect the firm (sure whatever you say) but the fact it was embezzled hurts. Couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch of guys.
I’ve just been informed that, according to a Chinese language news source, Lee & Li will borrow $2 billion in the short term to repay their client. And I thought they said the loss isn’t a problem.
what sucks is that they will probably not do a good job of preventing such things from re-occurring. probably end up making it worse for all the other employees with inefficient, redundant procedures designed to prevent theft, but in reality end up costing more time and money wasted. wouldn’t surprise me one bit.
it’s kinda like winning the lottery. not bad. and the winner gets to leave Taiwan.
I also just love how they YESTERDAY put out an APB and a hold at the border for him with immigration… yeah like he is still here in taiwan. Believe that and I got a bridge to sell you
Chinese language news is apparently reporting now that lenders are not willing to lend the needed NT$2 billion to Lee & Li, because they don’t trust their future earnings in light of this huge blot on their reputation. If that’s true we may see the coming bankruptcy of a giant.
Sharky, have you thought of going into private practice? Looks like there may be lots of big clients out there shortly.
Here’s what the NY Times had to say about the story:
EX- SANDISK EMPLOYEE SAID TO STEAL STOCK A former employee of the SanDisk Corporation’s Taiwan law firm stole $100 million worth of stock from SanDisk, the company said yesterday. SanDisk, a maker of memory cards based in Sunnyvale, Calif., had given the Taiwanese firm, Lee & Li, about 121 million shares of the United Microelectronics Corporation to hold in trust. A former senior legal staff member, who was not named, reportedly sold the shares on the Taiwanese stock exchange. A Sandisk spokesman, Mike Wong, said the person’s whereabouts were unknown. SanDisk said it had been assured by Lee & Li that it would not suffer any loss as a result of the crime. It is sending a team to Taiwan to investigate. Officials at Lee & Li and U.M.C. were not immediately available to comment. Shares of SanDisk rose $3.21, to $78.65.? (Dow Jones/AP)
And the story just keeps getting better. Apparently the father of the Lee & Li employee is also a thief. Word has it he engaged in various fraudulent bank transactions and then fled to the US where he’s been living with his booty for the past 10 years with no apparent difficulty because Taiwan and the US lack a mutual extradition treaty. So the kid was just trying to make his daddy proud… and he has undoubtedly surpassed poppa’s expectations.
