The will of Chang Yung-Fa, the founder of the Taiwanese global liner Evergreen, to leave all his deposits, stocks, and real estate to his second son Chang Kuo-Wei has been upheld in court.
After Chang died in January 2016, a will emerged in which he left most of his NT$14 billion ($437m) fortune to his fourth son Chang Kuo-Wei, born to a different wife than his earlier children. In his will he also designated Chang Kuo-Wei to succeed him as the president of Evergreen.
However, the third son of Chang’s first wife Chang Kuo-Cheng challenged the will and filed a lawsuit to proclaim it invalid. The high court ruled in favour of Chang Kuo-Wei, confirming the validity of the will.
The court did state that Chang Yung-Fa was frequently hospitalised for treatment in the two to three years before making the will, but showed no symptoms of delirium until after making the will and that no medical record or diagnosis proved Chang Yung-Fa was not mentally able to create a will.
Another fact that supported this theory was that Chang Yung-Fa gave his spouse a NT$100m deposit in September and October 2014 and transferred shares of three companies worth more than NT$100m to Chang Kuo-Wei in October and November of the same year. This, the court ruled, proved that Chang Yung-Fa still could dispose of a large amount of property at that time.
The court also found that the signature of Chang Yung-Fa on the sealed will was also confirmed as legitimate after comparing it to the writing habits of his signature on the foundation board meeting sign-in book and the National Taiwan University Hospital consent form.
As a result, Chang Kuo-Wei will inherit the massive estate but will not be able to succeed his father as the president of Evergreen. According to company law, the chairman is elected by the shareholders’ meeting, which then elects the board of directors. Although Chang Kuo-Wei inherited a large estate, his shareholding is still less than the combined shareholding of his other brothers and sisters. Because of that, he was not elected as a director and lost the right to operate the main companies of Evergreen.
Also, the position of group president designated by Chang Yung-Fa in his will does not exist in company law. That means that, even if Chang Kuo-Wei obtained the operating rights of the various companies, he would not have held the position of group president.
