萬國法律事務所

Taiwan’s Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) under the Executive Yuan recently announced a draft amendment to the Insurance Act. In the draft amendment, which mainly focuses on Articles 139-1, 139-2 and 171-2 of the Insurance Act, the FSC proposed implementing certain qualification standards and regulations on major shareholders of insurance companies. Specifically, where a person or a group of related persons intend to hold up to 15%, 25% and/or 50% of the shares of an insurance company, prior application must be made to the FSC for approval. Similarly, shareholding of more than 10% in an insurance company must be reported to the FSC within 10 days from the date of ownership.

In the future, major shareholders intending to hold shares of insurance companies, once the threshold of 15% is reached, will be required to obtain approval from the relevant authorities, where the focus of review will include qualification, source of funding and purpose of shareholding.

FSC officials have indicated that both the Financial Holding Company Act and the Banking Act have included regulations on the qualification of major shareholders, which prompted the FSC to adopt similar provisions in the Insurance Act as the same currently does not contain any relevant regulations on this subject-matter. This amendment has been submitted to the Executive Yuan on a priority basis and, if promptly passed, Nanshan Life Insurance (南山人壽保險股份有限公司) may be the first company to be subject to the new regulations.