Acquitted in first instance in the Ting Hsin case; Changhua prosecutors appeal

Article by the Changhua District Prosecutors Office

In this case (editor's note: the Ting Hsin cooking oil adulteration case), this office received the official copy of the judgment on December 3, 104 ROC era (2015), and because we consider that the judgment contains many errors in fact-finding and application of law, we filed an appeal today. The grounds are briefly stated below:

The original trial acquitted the defendants mainly on the grounds that the oil products they manufactured and sold could not be proven to come from unhealthy pigs; that the "vinacontrol" inspection report submitted by the defendants when applying for customs import could not be proven to be false in content; and that the acid value from sampling tests was for reference only, that total polar compounds were tested using a non-statutory testing method, and that heavy metals could be removed through the refining process, and so on.

However, taking the evidence of the entire case as a whole, the reasoning of the original judgment contains many errors in fact-finding and application of law, for example:

1. Vietnam's Dai Hanh Phuc Company is a feed supplier and has never been issued a food production manufacturer certificate by the Vietnamese government.

2. Dai Hanh Phuc Company has always sold feed oil, and only sold to Ting Hsin Company and Yong Cheng Company (a separate case adjudicated by the Chiayi District Court in Taiwan, China), after which it was imported under the name of food. Even the oils and fats shipped to other manufacturers in Taiwan, China during the same period were all used as feed oil. In other words, Dai Hanh Phuc Company did not have the capacity to supply raw materials for cooking oil.

3. The oils and fats sold by Dai Hanh Phuc Company had no legal proof of origin; the proof of origin "Huang An Factory" presented during the trial was verified to be false.

4. After inspection by the relevant authorities, the Vietnamese government determined that the oils and fats sold by Dai Hanh Phuc Company were feed oil.

5. The Vietnamese "vinacontrol" inspection report attached by Ting Hsin Company when declaring the import of Dai Hanh Phuc Company's oils and fats was false in content.

6. When Ting Hsin Company purchased Dai Hanh Phuc Company's oils and fats, it already knew that the oils and fats purchased differed from the samples sent to Vietnam for the "vinacontrol" inspection report, that is, the product information provided at the time of import was false.

7. The oils and fats of Dai Hanh Phuc Company were tested and found to have excessively high acid value and to contain heavy metals harmful to human health, yet they were still mixed into legal cooking oil for processing and manufacturing.

8. Even if the original judgment held that the substance mixed in through "adulteration and counterfeiting" must have the possibility of endangering health, that is, the "raw material" mixed in must not contain components harmful to the human body, in this case the substances adulterated by the defendants contained heavy metals harmful to human health. The original judgment turned a deaf ear to this and used the refined "finished product" not being proven harmful to overturn its own proposition (that the mixed-in substance must not be harmful); the reasoning is self-contradictory.

9. The original judgment avoided explaining important evidence such as the Vietnamese official documents, the falsity of the "vinacontrol" inspection report, and Ting Hsin Company's recycling and processing of expired oil.

This office considers that since the original judgment has the above-mentioned errors in fact-finding and application of law, and failed to address and refute much of the evidence, and instead reached an acquittal on vague grounds such as the presumption of innocence and the prosecution's failure to discharge its burden of proof, it is clearly untenable. Therefore, we file an appeal in accordance with the law, requesting the second-instance court to revoke the original judgment and enter a more appropriate and lawful judgment.