Offer To The CEO

Tuesday, continued …

Anna could not believe the press. How dare they make this accusation. She took a breath to calm down, and clearly enunciated "Do not say that. My husband and I have a formal wedding ceremony with family and friends in Australia this weekend. We are due back in the country by Wednesday next week. This has been planned for months so do not claim that we are fleeing. This is not about attacking us as the victims. If that is what you believe, then we will end this press conference immediately."

The press realised by the end that Anna was deadly serious. There were a few seconds silence before a journalist asked, "CEO Yao with there being allegations made about Lu Jingho being responsible for an attack on your daughter, what do you have to say about that and why is she not here?"

Amanda put her hand on Yao Tan's arm, and spoke "As to the former, my husband and I will not be commenting on this as it is before the court. As to the latter, my daughter is presently continuing her education overseas, and the court have agreed that it is inappropriate unless absolutely necessary to disrupt her education."

"That is not strictly true, Madam Yao. We have evidence that she is an underage bride. Is this true CEO Yao, and why in the world would any parent agree? What does her mother view about this if it is true?"

"Firstly, let me make this very clear. My children's biological mother abandoned our children just after birth and gave me full parental rights to the children. The termination of her parental rights is in formal court orders. Despite my children being seventeen, each of them has agreed to my wife formally adopting them. My wife is their legally recognised mother..."

Realising that Yao Tan was getting angry with the press questioning not only his ability to parent his children, which he had done from their birth but trying to push their biological mother back into their lives, Amanda squeezed Yao Tan's hand. She knew that the witch of a birth mother was feeding the press information. She had to put a stop to this now, as they otherwise would continue to attempt to undermine her legal role as the triplet's mother.

Amanda continued "My quite mature daughter, who by the way will commence not only studying at university but working for her father at XF International married with my husband's consent in front of family and friends. We not only trust her decision but her husband, who is completing his own university studies and she is taking the opportunity to expand her education."

Several journalists started asking questions about the nature of the charges which Anna and Amanda deflected them carefully making sure that they did not divulge any information about the charges to impact any future court hearings.

Just as they were getting ready to depart, the final question flung at them was "CEO Yao, as the major shareholder and CEO of a publicly listed company with a large entertainment division, where Lu Corporation is a competitor, what do you have to say about the stock market tumble of the value of Lu Corporation's shares?"

"Given the allegations about the former CEO of Lu Corporation's actions and additionally that there is the potential misuse of company resources, it is understandable that investors are concerned about the Company. It would therefore be expected that there would be an impact on share prices for those publicly traded shares."

"CEO Yao, there had been for a period where no shares were traded on the market, but they came back on-market Friday week ago. Would you say that the person or people who owned those shares, had inside knowledge of what has happened?"

"Ladies and Gentlemen this will be the last question that any of us answer. I would suspect that the decision of the owner or owners was to alter their investment strategy, including those shares. The fact that this happened when it did is something that no one can predict."

With that the bodyguards at Yao Tan's signal escorted them to the waiting cars to take them away.

As soon as she had gotten into the car, Anna, called Hou Yi and told him about what had happened and the impromptu press conference, stressing out that their involvement and what they had done would become publicly known.

Hou Yi reminded her, they were protected as their involvement and actions were known to the authorities as a means to place pressure to see what was happening, and any actions that normally would have been considered breaches of share market and company rules where covered due to the cooperation of the various authorities.