A legislative committee has asked Chunghwa Telecom Co. (CHT), Taiwan''s largest telecom operator, to oversee the operations of the Taiwan subsidiary of telecommunications giant Alcatel-Lucent S.A. to prevent questionable business practices.

Kuomintang Legislator Lo Shu-lei and her colleagues on the Legislative Yuan's Transportation Committee passed a non-binding resolution Monday demanding that the Ministry of Transportation and Communications (MOTC) push CHT to better oversee the subsidiary's operations and report its findings in one month.

Lo accused Alcatel Lucent Taiwan Monday of not acting professionally in carrying out contracts it won to supply the National Fire Administration with satellite telecommunication systems and vehicles for disaster prevention and rescue.

She also charged that those satellite disaster prevention and rescue systems and vehicles failed to contribute to rescue efforts during the height of Typhoon Morakot in 2009, one of the deadliest natural disasters in Taiwan's history.

The company's public relations office told the Central News Agency Tuesday and Wednesday it was unable to comment on the accusations because the head of the office was out.

This is not the first time the company has come under fire for questionable business practices.

Lo said it was one of the targets in a bribery case brought by the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) against Alcatel-Lucent S.A. for bribing government officials in Costa Rica, Malaysia, Honduras and Taiwan between 2001 and 2006 to win equipment contracts.

The conduct at issue involved Alcatel S.A.'s worldwide sales practices prior to its merger with Lucent Technologies in November, 2006.

The Paris-based Alcatel-Lucent S.A. agreed in December 2010 to pay US$137 million to settle the charges.

Alcatel's Taiwan subsidiary was charged by the U.S. DOJ with paying US$950,000 to two Taiwanese advisers who reportedly had no professional knowledge about the telecommunications industry to help Alcatel win major contracts with Taiwanese government agencies.