Shih-lin District Court Opens Online Sign Up for Mock Jury Trials & National Development Fund Refines “Startup Entrepreneur Angel Investment Program”

Shih-lin District Court Opens Online Sign Up for Mock Jury Trials & National Development Fund Refines “Startup Entrepreneur Angel Investment Program”

Shih-lin District Court Opens Online Sign Up for Mock Jury Trials

To be in line with Judicial Yuan’s policy on promoting the jury system, the Taiwan Shih-lin District Court in Taipei has planned to hold the first mock court of the year in April. Online registration has been available since February 1 for the public to participate in the selection.

The draft of the National Jury Act was announced by the Judicial Yuan on November 30, 2017. On January 16 last year, the Judicial department officially turned a green light on the laws of lay participation in the criminal trial system. It was later approved by the Executive Yuan April 25 and sent to Legislative Yuan afterwards.  The nation’s jury system is comprised of three professional judges and six jury members. The applicable cases are the crime of imprisonment for the minimum penalty of 7 years, and the intentional crime resulted in death.

Shih-lin District Court has previously held two criminal trial mock court for Taiwanese jury to participate in. Seven celebrities, including actor Chang Ting-hu and director Yee Chin-yen, were invited as “Celebrity Group” to observed the quasi-jury system and gave out opinions from different perspectives.

According to Shih-lin District Court, the first mock court of 2019 will hold its selection process on 24 of April, then the trial procedures and seminars will be held on the 25 and 26 of the same month. The registration would be open on the Internet, telephone, fax from February 1st. Six national juries and two backup juries, randomly chosen by the computer, is obliged to attend the trial and the discussion afterwards.

The press release mentioned that, R.O.C. citizens, aged above 23,  with at least high school degree or equivalent diploma, residing in the jurisdiction of the local court for more than 4 months, and capable of speaking and listening Mandarin, are qualified to enrol as the jury of the mock court. Yet ex-convict, military, police officers and lawyers are exceptions to the rules based on the provisions of the draft of National Jury Act. The selected jury would be given an NTD$2,500 of attendance fee per day.

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National Development Fund Refines “Startup Entrepreneur Angel Investment Program”

For the sake of ameliorating the investment environment of new ventures and improving the domestic angel investment, the National Development Fund(NDF) of the Executive Yuan launched the “Startup Entrepreneur Angel Investment Program” on March 2017 and invested NTD$ 1 billion for 5 years to provide initial working capital for start-ups in partnership with angel investors, hoping that angel investors could provide their counseling and networking experiences for new ventures. To assist with the start-up business to obtain the funds needed for the operation, the NDF adjusted the project in several manners on January 30, 2019.

  1. Increasing the investment amount for individual cases:  from NTD$10 million to 20 million.
  2. Relaxing the subject of application:  if the review committee agrees, the startups no longer require to find angel investors in order to apply for the program.
  3. Simplify the small-scale investment process: if the angel investor applies for an investment amount of less than NTD$3 million and the investment amount is not lower than the national development fund, the national development fund will directly invest in it and there is no need to send the application to the review committee for approval.
  4. Adjusting the withdrawal period of the fund: before the refinement , the withdrawal period of the fund is 7 years. The period could be extended in the future after review committee’s approval.

The Startup Entrepreneur Angel Investment Program has reviewed 16 new ventures so far, and approve of 11 new ventures (through a rate of 68.75%). The amount of investment by the National Development Fund has reached NT$98.2 million, while the folk angel investors have invested around NT$89 million. Seven of the ventures invested are domestic companies while the other 4 are overseas businesses. The industries include electronic technology, e-commerce, biotechnology, and leisure industries.

To maximize the implementation efficiency of this program, the NDF, linked with domestic and foreign angel investors, accelerators or nurturing institutions, will keep on inviting investors and entrepreneurs to apply for the project. It is hoped that the investors will break industrial and geographical restrictions and invest the essentials funds for initial operations for new ventures. It is believed that the program, as an incentive for angel investors to invest, would be a key enabler to help new ventures become sustainable enterprises.

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