Taiwan's High Court cut two lawmakers loose and kept two others behind bars in a long-running bribery scandal, a mixed result for prosecutors and a blow to public trust in the legislature.

• Former lawmakers Su Chen-ching and Liao Kuo-tung had their sentences upheld — 10 years and 8 years 6 months.
• Sitting lawmaker Chen Chao-ming and former lawmaker Hsu Yung-ming were both cleared on appeal, reversing their earlier convictions.
• The case centres on an alleged scheme to bribe lawmakers to lean on economics ministry officials and win back control of the SOGO department store chain.
• The alleged payments were meant to buy pressure through company-law amendments and public hearings — the ordinary machinery of the legislature turned into a tool for a business fight.
• Several aides and go-betweens drew lighter terms, many suspended, while the businessman at the centre took a short sentence and a large payment to the state.

Outlook: The verdicts can still be appealed, so the case is likely headed to Taiwan's Supreme Court.