His firm’s furniture, movable property to be auctioned in May: sources

ONCE prominent bank owner Agus Anwar has failed to make the initial payment for rent owed to Ngee Ann Development despite promising to do so by April 30, sources told BT.

BT understands that Mr Agus, who used to own banks in Indonesia, had proposed on April 28 to make a partial payment of the $1.2 million that his investment holding firm, Investoasia, owes Ngee Ann Development. The proposal was made just as the landlord was about to auction Investoasia’s property to offset the unpaid rent. Ngee Ann Development then called off the auction.

Sources told BT that an auction to sell Investoasia’s furniture and movable property will now be held in late May, and Mr Agus is currently negotiating with Ngee Ann Development on making payments for the outstanding rent.

This is not the first time the investment holding firm has failed on its promise to pay up. According to sources, Mr Agus had made numerous promises to pay the arrears owed, such as proposing an instalment plan, but did not make payment.

Investoasia’s repeated failure to pay up prompted Ngee Ann Development to file a suit against it in February this year.

According to court documents, Investoasia owes Ngee Ann Development rent for two offices it occupied on the 24th and 25th storeys of Ngee Ann City’s Tower A.

It owes Ngee Ann Development 13 months’ rent amounting to about $900,000 for the 24th-floor office. It also has to pay the landlord additional rent after failing to hand over the office despite a notice to do so by Dec 11 last year.

Ngee Ann Development then seized the office – and Investoasia’s property in it – through a court order issued on April 1.

Investoasia also owes Ngee Ann Development another $190,000 for office space it rented on the 25th floor between September and November 2008.

The current suit is among the many filed by creditors against Mr Agus and the firms controlled by him and his family.

Last December, he applied for a stay of bankruptcy proceedings, saying that he was looking to raise income from certain sources. His application was turned down – a decision he is appealing against.

Indonesian-born Mr Agus, now in his late 50s, moved here in 2000 to start afresh amid the fallout from the 1997 financial crisis. He became a Singapore citizen in 2004, the year news reports quoted Indonesian officials as saying that he owed the Indonesian government 3.2 trillion rupiah.

The money, equivalent to $633 million at the time, was said to have been used to bail out two of his Indonesia-based banks, which collapsed as a result of the 1997 financial crisis.

The banks, Bank Istimarat and Bank Pelita, are now defunct. According to the Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency (Ibra), the two banks misused the Indonesian government’s emergency loan.

Data from the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority (Acra) show that Investoasia was set up in 2001 and is controlled by Mr Agus and Marcel Tjia Han Liong, chief executive and executive director of Interra Resources, a petroleum exploration and production company which is listed in Singapore and Australia. The Ngee Ann City office on the 24th floor is still listed as its registered office.

The latest financial data provided by Investoasia to Acra dates back to 2006, where it reported a $24 million loss – after tax from continuing operations – and $4.8 million in revenue.

Companies it has an interest in include Keppel Telecommunications and Transportation (Keppel T&T), in which it had a 6.5 per cent stake, according to Keppel T&T’s 2009 annual report.

In January this year, High Court judge Lee Seiu Kin ordered Mr Agus to repay a $10.5 million loan he received in 2008 from Orion Oil, an investment firm.

The loan, secured through a mortgage on assets such as shares in Keppel T&T, was to have been repaid in three months with $500,000 in interest. However, Mr Agus filed a suit in court arguing that the loan was void because Orion Oil did not have a licence to lend money. This claim was rejected by Justice Lee. Mr Agus is appealing against the decision.

Last November, Mr Agus’s two sons were ordered by the High Court to pay $15 million that their father owes to the local branch of Societe Generale Bank & Trust after they signed documents agreeing to be liable for his debts.

The sons appealed against the summary judgement and the Court of Appeal allowed the appeal at a hearing last month. As a result, the case will proceed to be heard in a full trial at a later date, where the facts of the case will be examined.

Source: Business Times, 8 May 2010

Self-styled property investor Calisa Cheong Mei Ing was back in court on Tuesday after having her mitigation plea rejected last year.

In remand since July last year, Cheong faces 74 counts of cheating tenants of rent money and obtaining credit as an undischarged bankrupt.

When she appeared in the subordinate courts last October, the 40-year-old told the court she had wanted to plead guilty so as to fast track her sentence. She wanted to resume work as soon as possible and support her four children.

The single mother, however, decided to fight her case after her mitigation plea was rejected due to her insistence on maintaining innocence and a lawyer was subsequently assigned to her by the Law Society.

But in court on Tuesday, Cheong told District Judge Toh Yung Cheong that she would be representing herself as she had discharged the Law Society’s lawyer.

One of the victims, Mr Liu Guo, a Chinese national, told the court that Cheong had told him she was the owner of a flat at Geylang Bahru.

She told him that she was then pregnant and needed money, so Mr Liu withdrew S$3,000 from his bank account and gave it to her. He also transferred another S$4,000 from his bank account to hers.

However, when Mr Liu and his wife went to view the flat, he found out that the unit belonged to an Indian family. He telephoned Cheong but she told him he should inform her first if he wanted to view the flat again.

Refuting Mr Liu’s testimony, Cheong said that she had wanted to strike a rental deal with the flat owners, but Mr Liu jumped the gun and alarmed the owners.

The trial continues on Wednesday.

Source: Channel News Asia, 4 May 2010

It’s been a long journey for tycoon whose firm is asked to pay rental arrears

Agus Anwar may have once owned banks in Indonesia, but now he is owing rent.

The Singapore investment holding firm controlled by the once prominent banker has proposed a plan at the eleventh hour to pay $1.2 million in arrears it owes Ngee Ann Development – just as the landlord was about to auction the firm’s property to offset the unpaid rent.

Sources told BT that the public auction, which was supposed to be held on Wednesday, was called off after Investoasia (formerly known as Kapital Asia) proposed to make an initial payment of part of the arrears it owes by the end of the week.

No date has been set for another auction – if it is on the cards – to sell Investoasia’s furniture and moveable property.

According to court documents, Investoasia owes Ngee Ann Development rent for two offices it occupied on the 24th and 25th storeys of Ngee Ann City’s Tower A.

Investoasia owes Ngee Ann Development 13 months rent amounting to about $900,000 for the 24th floor office.

It also has to pay the landlord additional rent after it failed to hand over the office despite a notice to do so by Dec 11 last year.

Ngee Ann Development seized the office – and Investoasia’s property in it – through a court order issued on April 1.

Investoasia also owes Ngee Ann Development another $190,000 for office space it rented on the 25th floor between September and November 2008.

The investment holding firm’s failure to pay the arrears prompted Ngee Ann Development to file a suit against it in February through its lawyer Edward Tiong of Allen & Gledhill.

Early this month, an order issued by the High Court allowed Ngee Ann Development to auction property owned by Investoasia located at its former 24th floor office – unless it pays up.

Mr Agus and his lawyers have declined to comment.

The suit is one of many filed by creditors against Mr Agus and firms controlled by him and his family.

Last December, he applied for a stay of bankruptcy proceedings, saying he was looking to raise income from certain sources. His application was turned down – a decision he is appealing against.

Indonesian-born Mr Agus, now in his late 50s, moved here in 2000 to start afresh amid the fallout from the 1997 financial crisis, which hit Indonesia hard.

He became a Singapore citizen in 2004 – the year news reports quoted Indonesian officials as saying that he owed the Indonesian government 3.2 trillion rupiah.

The money, equivalent to $633 million at the time, was said to have been used to bail out two of his Indonesian-based banks which collapsed as a result of the 1997 crisis.

The banks, Bank Istimarat and Bank Pelita, are now defunct. According to the Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency (IBRA), Bank Istimarat and Bank Pelita misused the Indonesian government’s emergency loan.

When BT visited Investoasia’s former office on the 24th floor of Ngee Ann City Tower A last week, the premises were locked. A notice instructed that mail be delivered next door – which houses listed telecommunications firm Teledata. Some Investoasia employees were in the Teledata office but declined to speak.

According to data from the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority (ACRA), Investoasia was set up in 2001 and is controlled by Mr Agus and Marcel Tjia Han Liong, chief executive and executive director of Interra Resources, a petroleum exploration and production company which is listed in Singapore and Australia.

The latest financial data provided by Investoasia to ACRA dates back to 2006, where it reported a $24 million loss – after tax from continuing operations – and $4.8 million in revenue.

Companies it has an interest in include Keppel Telecommunications and Transportation (Keppel T&T), in which it had a 6.5 per cent stake, according to Keppel T&T’s 2009 annual report.

In January this year, High Court judge Lee Seiu Kin ordered Mr Agus to repay a $10.5 million loan he received in 2008 from investment company Orion Oil.

The loan was secured by a mortgage on shares in Keppel T&T, among various things, and was to have been repaid in three months with $500,000 in interest. However, Mr Agus argued in court that the loan was void since Orion Oil did not have a licence to lend money. This claim was rejected by Justice Lee.

Mr Agus is appealing against the decision.

Last November, Mr Agus’s two sons were ordered by the High Court to pay $15 million their father owes to the local branch of Societe Generale Bank & Trust after they signed documents agreeing to be liable for his debts.

When Mr Agus defaulted on payments in October 2008, the bank terminated the credit services it offered him. It held off taking legal action on condition that his sons Patrick Adrian Anwar and Andrew Francis Anwar take out mortgages on two apartments in Devonshire Road, which he bought in their names.

The sons signed an agreement to pay the bank all the money their father owed.

When Mr Agus again failed to make payments, the bank turned to the sons – who also failed to pay. This led the bank to sue Mr Agus, his sons and two investment holding companies, each owned by one brother.

Last July, the sum due to the bank was about $17 million.

Some $2.3 million has been recovered from the sale of shares, payment of dividends and sale proceeds from the two mortgages.

Source: Business Times, 30 Apr 2010

INDOCHINE pub and restaurant chain owner Michael Ma went to the High Court yesterday in a bid to reclaim $386,000 he had paid for the option to buy five conservation shophouses.

He had handed over 5 per cent of the Tanjong Katong Road shophouses’ total worth of $7.7 million thinking he could buy them for commercial use. But he later found out they were partially restricted to residential use.

Mr Ma claimed the seller, Goodman Development, had misrepresented the shophouses as being for commercial use, and wants it to return his money.

But Goodman denies misleading him and said he should have conducted better checks.

Yesterday, Mr Ma, an Australian and permanent resident here, told the High Court he paid the option fee on behalf of renovation and interior design firm Aqua Art, of which he was a director.

As he already owned a residential property, he was not eligible to buy any more meant for residential use. Neither could Aqua Art, as it was foreign-owned.

The trouble began on June 16 three years ago. Mr Ma said his property agent Odelia Tan told him Goodman’s property agent Katherine Poh confirmed that the shophouses were zoned for commercial use.

When he inspected them that day with business associate Andrew Neary and Aqua Art director Camilla Hall, Ms Poh confirmed they were for commercial use, although people were living in them, Mr Ma told the court.

However, when Ms Poh took the stand yesterday, questioned by Mr Ma’s lawyer Kenneth Pereira, she denied telling him that.

Ms Poh said she made it quite clear the two-storey shophouses were meant for commercial use only on the ground floor.

She also claimed that at no point did Mr Ma tell her he was a foreigner, which meant he would be ruled out of buying the shophouses. When asked why she did not check, she replied: ‘He never tells me, I never probe.’

On the day of the site visit, Mr Ma paid a fifth of the 5 per cent option to purchase fee.

Within three weeks, he paid the remainder so that he could exercise the option to buy.

But he later found out the properties were partially zoned as residential, pulled out of the deal, and sought a refund.

Goodman refused, and pointed out that nowhere in the purchase documents was it stated the properties were for commercial use.

Lawyer Felicia Ng also argued in defence statements that Goodman did not know Aqua Art was foreign-owned.

The hearing before Justice Choo Han Teck continues today.

Source: Straits Times, 20 Apr 2010

A COURT has found that an agreement between Electronic Realty Associates (ERA) and a property owner could result in ‘unjust enrichment’ for the property agency.

District Judge Francis Tseng has thus ordered four lawyers to return to Mr Simon Suppiah Sunmugam the money they had paid out as commission to the agency.

The lawyers had earlier released $28,000 as commission to ERA from the sale of Mr Suppiah’s house.

The 62-year-old private investigator had sued Ms Amarjit Kour, Mr Gregory Tang Wee Thiang, Ms Belinda Ang Choo Poh and Mr Peter Cuthbert Low, of the now-defunct law firm Peter Low Tang & Belinda Ang, for failing in their professional duties in connection with a property sale in 2002.

A fifth lawyer, Mr Andrew John Hanam, was found not to be at fault as he was not involved in the agreement. He had been engaged only to act for Mr Suppiah’s divorce from Madam Nee Shyan Huey in May 1996.

In his judgment last Wednesday, Judge Tseng said the four lawyers’ interpretation of the provisions of the agreement, titled Exclusive Authorisation to Sell, renders the property seller ‘at the complete mercy’ of ERA and could result in a ‘most unfair situation’.

Signed in June 2001 by Madam Nee, 44, an insurance agent, the agreement granted ERA a commission of 2 per cent on the first $1 million of the purchase price and 1 per cent for any amount in excess paid for the matrimonial home in Punggol.

This was payable if the company introduced a buyer or if the property was sold within three months.

After the 90-day period, the agreement would continue from week to week unless terminated by either party.

The proposed selling price was $2.4million, but ERA found a potential buyer who offered only $1.6 million in February the following year.

Mr Suppiah rejected it as too low, and a month later, he found a buyer who was willing to pay $1.75 million.

When the sale was completed, Mr Suppiah expected his share of the sales proceeds to be $240,000, with the rest of the money going to Madam Nee and to a trust fund for the couple’s two daughters.

When he received only $212,000 in July 2002, as $28,000 had been taken out for the agency’s commission, he instructed Mr Hanam to write to the other lawyers to withhold payment, as he had found the buyer himself.

But by then it was too late, as they had already released the money to ERA.

It was argued that since the agreement was not terminated, ERA was entitled to the commission even if the agency did nothing after the three-month period.

However, Judge Tseng said that this would amount to ‘unjust enrichment’ for the agency.

The court also dismissed the defendants’ claims that they were acting only for Madam Nee and did not owe her ex-husband any professional obligation.

The judge noted that their law firm clearly stated it was acting for both parties in its correspondence with the Central Provident Fund Board and the Comptroller of Property Tax.

Mr Suppiah’s lawyer Alain A. Johns also convinced the court that there was ‘a total lack of consideration on the part of ERA’ in the agreement, which he said should be regarded as ‘void and unenforceable’.

The four lawyers, who were also ordered to pay costs, are considering an appeal against the verdict.

Source: Straits Times, 5 Apr 2010

Singaporean Norsiah Suja’i thought she had found her dream home when she forked out her life savings to buy a double-storey terrace house in Johor Baru in 1998 for more than RM335,000 (S$141,500 now).

Instead, the retired teacher and 72 other Singaporeans in Taman Permata are about to lose their property to the developer’s bank – after the developer went bust in 2000.

The bank won a court order from the Johor Baru High Court to auction off their property four years ago. The court also ruled that the houses were an abandoned project.

Yesterday, some 30 of the 73 Singaporeans travelled by bus to Putrajaya, about 40km from Kuala Lumpur, to hear their appeal against the High Court’s decision.

But the case was adjourned after their lawyer Rosli Kamaruddin asked for one of the three judges to recuse himself, as he was the same judge who allowed the bank to auction off three houses in Taman Permata.

‘We have suffered so much loss, I hope we can all get some justice in this case,’ said Madam Norsiah, 65.

Most of the Singaporean buyers are retirees, who paid for their houses in cash with their pension and life savings.

The developer had failed to deliver on its promise that the 136-unit Taman Permata would be a posh residential area complete with condo facilities such as a swimming pool and security guards.

Most of the Singapore buyers have been forced to live there now, as they cannot afford another property in Singapore.

‘I spend my weekdays in JB and I visit my daughters in Singapore on weekends,’ said Madam Norsiah. ‘I have no choice.’

Another buyer, who wanted to be known only as Madam Safia, 60, said the JB High Court had also ordered buyers to pay another 10 per cent on top of what they paid for their houses to obtain their title deeds. But only a few were willing to pay and even then they did not immediately get the title deeds.

She said although the houses were built in 1998, they were allowed to move in only after they obtained the certificate of fitness in 2005. ‘By that time, our houses were already in bad shape and each of us had to fork out about RM50,000 to fix our houses,’ she said.

Madam Safia said they had tried various ways to save their houses.

In 2003, they had even met then Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi and then Local Government and Housing Minister Ong Ka Ting.

The bank’s lawyers declined to comment on the case.

Source: Straits Times, 25 Mar 2010

RUNAWAY lawyer Zulkifli Mohd Amin had moved more than $10 million out of his firm’s client’s account over a 10-month period in 2007, a sum larger than the $6 million previously thought.

These details emerged in a 56-page report by a disciplinary tribunal comprising retired Judge of Appeal L.P. Thean and lawyer Tan Chuan Thye.

The tribunal, appointed in August last year by the Chief Justice to formally investigate the case, found Zulkifli guilty of a total of 211 charges of misconduct.

Zulkifli was one of three partners of the now-defunct firm of Sadique Marican and ZM Amin.

He is not around to face the music, but his partners, Mr Mohd Sadique

Ibrahim Marican and Mr Anand Kumar Toofani Beldar, will have to face a Court of Three Judges for breaching accounting rules and failing to safeguard clients’ money.

Out of the 211 charges against Zulkifli, 208 are related to unauthorised withdrawals of funds from the account used to hold clients’ money.

The remaining charges were for failing to ensure that the client’s account was not overdrawn and failing to keep the books in order.

The accounts of the firm were managed by Zulkifli.

The other partners have each been found guilty of three charges of failing to keep the books in order and failing to supervise transactions involving clients’ money.

In November 2007, Mr Sadique and Mr Anand told the Law Society that Zulkifli was missing and they suspected him of misappropriating money from the firm.

The firm’s accounts were inspected.

Among other things, it was found that the firm had been issuing cash cheques after May 15, 2007 even though it was no longer allowed to do so under the rules.

Fund transfers were made and cash cheques were issued without supporting documents.

Although Mr Sadique’s signature appears on some forms and cheques, a handwriting expert has concluded that they were forged.

The 211 charges form the most serious of three separate disciplinary proceedings against Zulkifli. The tribunal has found that the case is serious enough to be referred to the Court of Three Judges, which has the power to suspend or strike lawyers off the rolls.

On Tuesday, another of the three cases, involving Zulkifli’s inaction in a conveyancing transaction that caused his clients to lose out on a property deal, was brought before the Court of Three Judges by the Law Society seeking to disbar Zulkifli.

This drew criticism from the judges, who questioned why the society brought up less serious charges when it was well-known that Zulkifli had done worse. The court asked for more details about his other disciplinary proceedings.

Yesterday, it emerged that Zulkifli was found guilty earlier this month of the 211 charges. Both cases will be dealt with together by the court.

The third case is pending.

According to sources, the less serious complaint was made in November 2007 and the disciplinary tribunal, in its report in October last year, said the matter should be brought to the Court of Three Judges.

By law, the society had a one-month deadline to make the application.

It is understood that the society had considered deferring the less serious case, but as it was unsure how long it would take to investigate the 211 charges, it decided to go ahead with the less serious case.

Source: Straits Times, 27 Feb 2010

MINORITY owners have had a key victory in yet another court fight over the failed $500 million Horizon Towers en-bloc deal.

An assistant registrar in the High Court yesterday threw out a bid by two former members of the sales committee to halt an action against them by the owners.

The three sets of minority owners are suing the two – ex-committee chairman Arjun Samtani and ex-member Tan Kah Gee – over costs incurred when they tried to block the collective sale.

They want to be reimbursed for more than $800,000 in costs. This includes the cost of hiring lawyers to advise them and other administrative costs.

The sum is expected to be partially offset when the costs awarded to the owners by the Court of Appeal last year, after the en-bloc deal was quashed, are assessed.

The owners argue that both committee members were ‘key players in the process leading up to the commencement, facilitation, management and finalisation of the collective sale process’, according to court documents.

Lawyers for the committee members countered that the minority owners’ suit should be struck off as the action was ’scandalous, frivolous (and) vexatious’. They also pointed out that the Court of Appeal awarded costs last April in a case that dealt with all outstanding issues of reimbursement.

But the minority owners argued that the new case is different from the one settled last year.

In that case last year, costs were awarded for the minority owners’ conduct in opposing the proposed sale by the consenting majority owners.

The present action is different as it is based on what they claim is the lack of good faith in the collective sale deal struck by Mr Arjun and Mr Tan as members of the sales committee.

They allege that this ‘lack of good faith’ resulted in minority owners having to put in a great deal of effort and spend a lot of money to oppose the sale.

In effect, they claim there was a breach of fiduciary duties and they want to be compensated for the costs from the resulting damages.

Mr Kannan Ramesh, who is acting for the owners, said in his submissions: ‘The causes of action in both cases are appreciably different.’

At a closed-door hearing yesterday, assistant registrar Leong Weng Tat ruled in a reserved judgement that the suit by the minority owners should proceed.

Mr Arjun and Mr Tan, represented by Mr N. Sreenivasan and senior counsel Tan Cheng Han respectively, can appeal to the High Court against the decision, otherwise the case will advance to a full hearing. Lawyers say either way, the case may eventually go to the Court of Appeal.

The Horizon Towers collective sale spanned more than two years and involved two Strata Titles Board hearings and two High Court hearings before being thrown out by the Court of Appeal last year.

Source: Straits Times, 25 Feb 2010

High Court dismisses striking out action by 2 former sales committee members

The latest legal tussle involving Horizon Towers looks set to go into full swing, with the High Court having dismissed the action by the two defendants to strike out the lawsuits filed against them.

This means the court will hear the claims brought by three sets of minority owners against the two former sales committee members – unless the defendants succeed in appealing against yesterday’s decision.

BT understands that the first defendant – former sales committee chairman, Arjun Samtani – will appeal the High Court decision, while the second defendant, Tan Kah Gee, is still deliberating if he should appeal.

The High Court yesterday also ordered both Mr Samtani and Mr Tan to jointly bear the costs of the striking-out application and the court hearing – amounting to a total of $6,000.

The minority owners are suing the two former sales committee members to reclaim close to $1 million in legal and administrative costs which they say they incurred during the lengthy fight to keep their homes.

The en bloc sale of Horizon Towers was a saga that dragged out for more than two years, and involved several High Court and Strata Titles Board hearings. The Court of Appeal eventually decided in April last year that the deal could not go through because the development’s sales committee had failed in its duty.

The Court of Appeal had ordered the bulk of costs to be borne by the development’s potential buyer, Hotel Properties Ltd (HPL), and its majority owners.

But three sets of minority owners, represented by Kannan Ramesh of Tan Kok Quan Partnership, are now seeking compensation for the sums not covered by the Court of Appeal judgment. The three sets of owners are seeking between $117,000 and $370,000 in costs – making for a total claim of more than $800,000.

The minorities say they were made to defend their homes against an en bloc process actuated by a lack of good faith on the part of the sales committee, and had to spend much for their effort.

They said Mr Samtani and Mr Tan were ‘key players in the process leading up to the commencement, facilitation, management and finalisation of the collective sale process’.

In his defence, Mr Samtani – represented by N Sreenivasan of Straits Law Practice — said he was not alone in driving the sale process. He said ‘each and every member of the SC (sales committee) played an equally important role’ and that he ‘did not have any special powers’ that could influence the committee’s decisions.

Mr Samtani also claimed that the committee ‘followed up on all expressions of offer’ for Horizon Towers and that it received no offer better than HPL’s at the relevant time. He said the committee was advised by its lawyers to proceed with the HPL offer.

Mr Tan, represented by Senior Counsel Tan Cheng Han and Ian Lim of TSMP Law Corporation, said he was ‘not a key player’ and cited various correspondence and minutes of sales committee meetings which he said showed that he did not play a major role in the various aspects of the collective sale.

Mr Tan also said that the sales committee did not seriously consider an alternative offer made at the time by a Vineyard Holdings, as it had ‘questioned the credibility of the expression of interest from Vineyard and their level of seriousness given that Vineyard was a Hong Kong company that was not well known and its lawyers were not from a Singaporean firm, but from a small Malaysian law firm’.

He claims he suggested waiting for a higher offer, but that the majority of the sales committee did not agree. He said the sales committee genuinely felt they would not get a better offer than the one by HPL, and that they had been advised by their lawyers to accept the offer.

Mr Tan had also sought to strike out the minorities’ suits against him and Mr Samtani, saying that the entire remedy sought by the minorities was already dealt with by the Court of Appeal last April, when it decided on how it would award costs to the various parties. But the High Court chose to dismiss this application yesterday.

The defendants have 14 days to submit their appeal.

Source: Business Times, 25 Feb 2010

HE SKIPPED town with a purported $6 million in clients’ money, yet the Law Society used relatively minor charges of misconduct as a basis to get lawyer Zulkifli Mohd Amin disbarred.

The move puzzled the Court of Three Judges, the highest disciplinary body in the legal profession, which has powers to suspend or strike wayward lawyers off the rolls.

Justice V.K. Rajah said he was perplexed at why the Law Society had laid some minor charges against Zulkifli.

‘We all know that this is a lawyer who absconded with the second largest amount of money in Singapore’s legal history,’ he said.

But the relatively minor charges Zulkifli faced, added Justice Rajah, did not show the gravity of what he had done.

Chief Justice Chan Sek Keong remarked that the court should not be hearing disciplinary proceedings in stages.

He said that if the court felt the facts of the current case did not warrant Zulkifli being struck off, that means the Law Society would have to come back again with another set of charges.

Chief Justice Chan said there was ’something very wrong’ with the way the Law Society was going about handling the case, describing it as ‘worrying’.

The court adjourned the case to Friday for the Law Society to provide information on what else Zulkifli is said to have done, how much he had absconded with and details of any other pending disciplinary proceedings against him.

When contacted, a Law Society spokesman said the society was unable to comment as the matter is still pending.

Zulkifli, who had practised law since 2000, made headlines when he fled in November 2007, reportedly with $6 million in clients’ funds meant for property deals.

Yesterday, Mr Anthony Lee, counsel for the Law Society, applied to the Court of Three Judges to strike Zulkifli off the rolls over a specific conveyancing transaction.

In the case, he did not swipe any money, but his failure to follow up and keep his clients informed of the progress of the transaction caused them to lose out on a property deal in 2007.

The clients, a married couple, had engaged Zulkifli to act for them in a property purchase. They had issued cheques for the necessary payments and got a bank loan, but Zulkifli neither made the payments to the developer, nor did he draw down from the loan to meet the payments.

He also failed to tell his clients about the numerous notices and reminders for payment.

As a result of not getting the payments, the developer annulled the sale. Last year, a two-man disciplinary tribunal found Zulkifli guilty of misconduct.

He remains at large.

Source: Straits Times, 24 Feb 2010