MND mum on report about seeking damages over Mirage deal
ROC Central News Agency
2013/01/14 18:30:43
Taipei, Jan. 14 (CNA) The Ministry of National Defense (MND) declined to comment Monday on a report that the military has formally sought damages from France over the illegal payment of commissions in a Mirage fighter deal in the 1990s.
The ministry stressed, however, that it will always actively defend national interests.
The United Daily News (UDN) reported Monday that Taiwan's Air Force filed an application with the Paris-based ICC International Court of Arbitration late last year seeking compensation from the French supplier of the aircraft for paying illegal commissions to secure the deal.
The report also said Defense Minister Kao Hua-chu confirmed at a Legislative Yuan meeting in October 2011 that the military had been collecting evidence on suspected irregularities in the Mirage deal and had retained lawyers to handle litigation in the coming year.
According to the report, the Defense Ministry set aside a budget of NT$70 million (US$2.41 million) in 2012 to finance the legal proceedings.
Code-named Lunghua Project, the request for damages was filed by Air Force Command Headquarters late last year, the report said.
Asked about the report, ministry spokesman Luo Shou-he refrained from commenting, but he said the Defense Ministry makes every effort to safeguard national interests.
Air Force headquarters said it was also not in a position to comment, because the case was "classified."
Taiwan procured 60 Mirage 2000-5 jet fighters from France in 1992 for about NT$160 billion (US$5.5 billion). The last aircraft was delivered in 2001 and four of them have since crashed in separate accidents, leaving 56 in service.
Suspected irregularities in the Mirage deal were first exposed on Oct. 30, 2001 by the French newspaper Le Monde.
The paper said French judicial authorities found that a large sum of money deposited at banks in Switzerland, Luxembourg and Liechtenstein under the name of Taiwanese arms broker Andrew Wang were commissions for not only the Lafayette frigate deal but also the Mirage deal.
According to Le Monde, the illegal commissions involved in the Mirage deal amounted to 2.4 billion French francs, or about NT$11.4 billion.
Responding to the report, the Control Yuan, a government branch that monitors the behavior and operations of public officials and agencies, formed a task force to investigate the Mirage deal.
The UDN report said that while the Control Yuan team failed to find solid evidence to prove the existence of any irregularities in the Mirage deal,it concluded that the Air Force handled the case sloppily and perfunctorily.
The Control Yuan investigative report also said the deal's total value was 50 percent higher than it should have been based on normal market prices and that some retired military officers living abroad who were involved in the deal refused to return to Taiwan for questioning.
Acting on the Control Yuan report, the government ordered Air Force headquarters to send officers to France in 2003 to apply for arbitration.
The move was aimed at preserving the country's right to seek compensation before the expiration of a deadline for filing for arbitration.
The UDN report cited senior officials as saying that Taiwan's success in June 2011 in securing compensation from a French supplier for illegal commissions paid in the Lafayette frigate deal gave the military a morale boost in pursuing the Mirage case.
On June 10, 2011, the French government and defense giant Thales announced that they would pay Taiwan a court-ordered fine of 630 million euros (US$913 million) after losing an appeal in a case involving bribes to clinch a Lafayette-class frigate deal with Taiwan in the 1990s.
The ruling brought to an end to a nearly two-decade dispute between France and Taiwan over commissions paid in the US$2.8 billion deal.
(By Chen Pei-huang and Sofia Wu)
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