CNA file photo

Taipei, March 6 (CNA) Oung Ta-ming (翁大銘), the controversial former chairman of the Hualon Group, was found dead at home in Taipei on Friday at noon. He was 64.

The Taipei Fire Department received a call and went to Oung's home on Heping East Road Section 4, only to find him dead.

Taipei Police confirmed the dead man was indeed Oung. The cause of death will have to be investigated, police said, but initial indications suggested that the tycoon died in his home's sauna.

Oung was a big player in the stock market in the 1990s and was convicted during the decade for insider trading and manipulation of stock prices. He was also a legislator from 1993 to 1996.

Oung was sentenced to two years in prison by the Supreme Court in 2010 for violating the Securities and Exchange Act in trades made in 1994. He was given parole in 2011 after serving over a year in prison.

The Oung family has also developed a bad reputation for the way it has handled workers and layoffs at Hualon Group plants around Taiwan.

Workers from Hualon's synthetic fiber plant in Miaoli County, for example, continue to hold protests demanding that the group pay them NT$700 million owed in outstanding salary and pensions.

(By Liu Chien-pang, Lin Chang-shun and Kuo Chung-han)
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