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Disciplinary Tribunal finds Lee Suet Fern guilty of professional misconduct in handling founding PM Lee Kuan Yew’s will

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5 years ago

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A Disciplinary Tribunal appointed by Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon has found lawyer Lee Suet Fern guilty of grossly improper professional misconduct in handling the final will of Singapore’s founding prime minister Lee Kuan Yew under section 83(2)(b) of the Legal Profession Act.

The tribunal said in a report released last Fri (21 Feb) that Mrs Lee and her husband Lee Hsien Yang — the youngest son of the late Mr Lee and one of the executors of his late father’s will — had encouraged Mr LKY to revoke the sixth will in the absence of Mr LKY’s lawyer Kwa Kim Li.

Ms Kwa was tasked with drafting all of Mr LKY’s wills from the first one to the sixth — the penultimate — will, from 2011 to 2012.

Mrs Lee and Mr LHY had reportedly arranged the revocation of the sixth will with Mr LKY and the execution of a new will — which was to be Mr LKY’s last will — despite Mr LKY’s agreement to execute a codicil to the sixth will.

Mrs Lee had forwarded the draft of the last will from Mr LHY to Mr LKY via email on 16 Dec 2013, and made arrangements for Mr Lee to sign the last will as soon as possible — within 16 hours — the following day, said the tribunal.

She testified that the last will was signed in the presence of lawyers Bernard Lui and Elizabeth Kong, both from Mrs Lee’s law firm Stamford Law.

Mr LKY, who the tribunal noted was 90 at the time, very frail and in poor health, signed the last will out of trust in Mrs Lee Suet Fern’s words, namely that the content of the last will’s draft was the same as his first will in 2011.

She did not, however, inform Mr LKY that the draft last will included a demolition clause not present in the sixth will, the tribunal highlighted.

The demolition clause — which concerned the demolition of his family home at 38 Oxley Road — were present in Mr LKY’s first four wills. It was later removed from his fifth and sixth wills.

The tribunal added that Mrs Lee did not seek to confirm if Mr LKY wanted certain other changes to be made — by carefully going through the provisions in the draft of the last will — in the first place.

Mrs Lee, said the tribunal, “gave the briefest of advice to Mr Lee, and did not alert Mr Lee to all the differences between what Mr Lee had earlier wanted and what the last will actually provided for”.

Additionally, the tribunal noted that Mrs Lee did not advise Mr LKY to seek independent legal advice pertaining to the matter, especially given her own possible conflict of interest as Mr LHY’s wife and the absence of Ms Kwa.

Mrs Lee’s conduct, according to the tribunal, was in violation of a solicitor’s duties, particularly considering that Mr LHY was going to partially benefit from the will.

The final will, said the tribunal, increased Mr LHY’s share in Mr LKY’s estate.

Thus, Mrs Lee’s act of receiving instructions and carrying out said instructions from Mr LHY were “an aggravating factor which increases the egregiousness of the conduct”, as the courts have emphasised the importance of solicitors exercising caution when dealing with such instructions solely from a beneficiary to a will, said the tribunal.

The couple had also demonstrated actions that are “deceitful” by suppressing certain relevant evidence, such as documents connected to Mr Lui, which Mrs Lee was under a legal duty to disclose.

Mrs Lee, said the tribunal, acted as “deceitful witness, who tailored her evidence to portray herself as an innocent victim who had been maligned”, while Mr LHY had made up evidence along the way in his public statements regarding the will.

Mr LKY, according to Mrs Lee’s account, had signed the last will upon being told by Mr Lui and Ms Kong that Mrs Lee was the one who had drafted the will. This was seen in her email correspondence with her colleagues when they updated her on the signing of the last will, she said.

The tribunal pointed out that Mrs Lee had neither said nor done anything to object the role being ascribed to her as the lawyer who had drafted the will, and had even given instructions to Mr Lui such as asking for an original copy of the will to be stored in her safe.

Mrs Lee told the Law Society’s lawyers that she was merely giving a hand to Mr LKY and her husband Mr LHY as a family member regarding the will, and that it did not indicate that she was Mr LKY’s lawyer.

Mrs Lee, whom the tribunal found had drafted the final will and was instructed by Mr LKY to do so, had also given “untruthful reasons” for keeping the original copy of the final will in her office safe, said the tribunal.

The pair’s dishonesty was also, according to the tribunal, made more evident in Mr LHY’s public allegation against Ms Kwa in his Facebook posts, in which he said Ms Kwa had lied regarding not having drafted the final will.

Mr LHY had also notably removed Ms Kwa from the aforementioned email correspondence, and told Mr Lee that his wife’s law firm was able to deal with the will, according to the tribunal.

“Having procured the last will through these improper means, [they] then fabricated a series of lies and inaccuracies, to perpetuate the falsehoods that Ms Kwa Kim Li had been involved in the last will, and hide their own role in getting [Mr LKY] to sign the last will and their wrongdoings,” said the tribunal.

Mrs Lee’s case began when the Attorney-General’s Chambers (AGC) referred her to the Law Society for a possible professional misconduct case.

The AGC stated that Mrs Lee had prepared the last will of Mr LKY and had arranged for Mr LHY to execute it despite her husband being one beneficiaries. The last will resulted in Mr LHY’s share in the late Mr Lee’s estate being increased.

AGC’s complaint followed the debate held in Parliament in 2017 in which Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong — the brother of Mr LHY and Dr Lee Wei Ling, also one of the executors of the will — denied allegations put forth by his siblings in a public statement.

The will that took effect in 2015 was not contested by PM Lee.

The AGC said it had written to Mrs Lee several times to seek her explanation on her involvement in preparing the last will, but Mrs Lee did not answer its questions.

Mr LHY in a Facebook post yesterday (23 Feb) shared Mrs Lee’s comments regarding the tribunal’s report.

Mrs Lee said: “I disagree with the Disciplinary Tribunal’s report and will fight this strongly when it is heard in open court.”

“Any member of the public can obtain the entire record of the closed-door proceedings of the Tribunal from the Law Society. I urge the public to look at these and come to their own independent conclusions,” she added.

Mrs Lee’s case will now be referred to the Court of Three Judges, which is Singapore’s apex disciplinary body in dealing with lawyers’ misconduct.

The lawyer may face a fine, or be suspended or disbarred from her profession.

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Court Cases

Two men acquitted in corruption case involving former LTA director due to unreliable CPIB statements

Two men accused of corruption in relation to a former LTA director were acquitted on 11 October 2024. The trial judge found that statements taken by CPIB officers were unreliable and inaccurate, affecting the credibility of the case.

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1 day ago

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11 October 2024

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Two men accused in a corruption case involving a former deputy group director of the Land Transport Authority (LTA), Henry Foo Yung Thye, were acquitted on 11 October 2024.

The trial judge ruled that the statements taken by the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB) had been unreliable and inaccurate, resulting in the acquittal of Mr Pay Teow Heng, 56, and Mr Pek Lian Guan, 59. Both had been charged in July 2020 for allegedly bribing Foo to secure business advantages for their company, Tiong Seng Contractors.

District Judge Soh Tze Bian issued a detailed 52-page judgment highlighting the procedural flaws in the case.

He emphasized that the conduct of the CPIB officers responsible for recording statements from Mr Pay and Mr Pek raised significant doubts about the reliability of the evidence against the accused. The judge found that the statements obtained from the two men were “inaccurate, unreliable and unsafe” to rely on, leading to their acquittal on all charges.

The accusations against Mr Pay and Mr Pek centred on two counts, each under the Prevention of Corruption Act

Mr Pay, then the director of Tiong Seng Contractors, was accused of offering S$350,000 in bribes to Henry Foo on two occasions in 2017 and 2018 to advance the company’s interests with the LTA. Mr Pek, the managing director of Tiong Seng Contractors, was accused of aiding Mr Pay in the alleged offences.

On 2 September 2021, Henry Foo was sentenced to 66 months’ imprisonment for corruption. Additionally, a penalty order of S$1,156,250 (in default, 12 months’ imprisonment) was imposed on him.

Issues with the CPIB Investigation

A key factor in the acquittal was the conduct of two CPIB investigating officers (IOs), Chris Lim and another officer identified only as Jeffrey. According to Judge Soh, their methods of recording statements from the accused demonstrated a lack of objectivity and integrity.

Mr Lim, who recorded Mr Pay’s second statement, admitted during the trial that he had approached the interview with a “preconceived notion” of Mr Pay’s guilt.

Judge Soh criticized Mr Lim’s handling of the statement, noting that he retyped the statement with his own wording after Mr Pay suggested amendments. This action left Mr Pay unable to verify whether his changes were accurately reflected, raising questions about the reliability of the statement.

Similarly, IO Jeffrey’s conduct in recording Mr Pek’s first statement was found to be flawed. The judge noted that Jeffrey had used a “cut-and-paste method” to compile the statement, which included repeated self-incriminating remarks.

The judge remarked that the statement seemed more like a “product of IO Jeffrey’s authorship than an accurate account of what Pek actually communicated.” During cross-examination, Jeffrey admitted that he had crafted the statement to suggest that Mr Pek was the originator of the corrupt scheme.

The judge noted: “By IO Jeffrey’s own admission, he drafted Pek’s first statement with the intention to ‘frame’ Pek, focusing almost exclusively on recording information that supported Pek’s culpability, rather than objectively establishing the facts of the case.”

He stated that these actions by the IOs made it unsafe to rely on the statements as evidence of guilt.

Testimony of Key Witness Henry Foo

Another critical aspect of the judgment involved the testimony of Henry Foo, the former LTA official who received the alleged bribes.

Foo, who was called as a prosecution witness, testified that neither Mr Pay nor Mr Pek had requested any favours in return for the loans they extended to him. He maintained that the loans were offered out of goodwill and friendship, rather than as part of a corrupt arrangement.

Judge Soh noted that the prosecution had failed to challenge or impeach Foo’s credibility, making his testimony more reliable in the eyes of the court.

Furthermore, Foo had testified that he pleaded guilty to the charges against him in 2021 not because he believed in his own guilt, but to avoid the prolonged distress of a trial. Judge Soh rejected the prosecution’s argument that Foo’s guilty plea should be seen as an admission of his own corrupt intent and that of Mr Pay and Mr Pek.

Foo was sentenced to five-and-a-half years in prison in September 2021 after being found guilty of accepting S$1.24 million in bribes.

His guilty plea, however, did not directly implicate Mr Pay and Mr Pek in corrupt activities, according to the judge’s assessment.

Outcome and Next Steps

Judge Soh concluded that the prosecution had failed to prove its case against Mr Pay and Mr Pek beyond a reasonable doubt.

As a result, he ordered a discharge amounting to an acquittal for both men, clearing them of all charges.

The Attorney-General’s Chambers (AGC) is currently reviewing the judgment to determine the next course of action, as confirmed by an AGC spokesperson.

Both Mr Pay and Mr Pek had stepped down from their roles at Tiong Seng Holdings after the charges were brought against them in 2020.

Several other individuals, including former directors of other engineering firms, have been sentenced to jail in connection with the corruption scheme involving Henry Foo.

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Court Cases

3 Chinese nationals linked to global cybercrime syndicate face new charges in Singapore

New charges were filed on 8 October against three Chinese nationals linked to an alleged global cybercrime syndicate in Singapore. One suspect faces allegations of receiving S$11.6 million from “Biao Ge,” purportedly used for the upkeep and expenses of the group. The nationals entered Singapore on construction work passes but reportedly did not stay at their registered workplaces.

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3 days ago

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9 October 2024

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SINGAPORE: New charges were tendered on Tuesday (8 October 2024) against three Chinese nationals implicated in an alleged global cybercrime syndicate based in Singapore.

The latest revelations indicate a flow of funds amounting to approximately S$11.6 million (US$8.9 million) dedicated to the upkeep of the group and its connections to South Korea.

As reported by CNA, the court records, charge sheets, and a prior press statement jointly issued by the police and the Internal Security Department (ISD) outline that the trio is part of a larger group of seven men, all Chinese nationals except one Singaporean.

According to a police statement issued on 10 September, The group is accused of operating from a bungalow in Mount Sinai and is believed to be linked to a global syndicate involved in cybercrime activities.

Authorities seized laptops and devices from the suspects, which contained credentials to access Internet servers associated with known hacker groups, stolen data belonging to foreign victims, computer hacking tools exploiting vulnerabilities in Internet servers, and specialised software to control malware.

The Chinese nationals reportedly gained entry into Singapore with work passes intended for construction work but allegedly did not stay at their registered employer’s workplace.

The suspects were apprehended on 9 September in simultaneous island-wide raids conducted by approximately 160 officers from the Singapore Police Force (SPF) and ISD.

The seven accused men are: Sun Jiao, 42, Zhang Qingqiao, 38, Chen Yiren, 42, Yan Peijian, 38, Huang Qin Zheng, 35, Liu Yuqi, 32, and Singaporean Goh Shi Yong, 34. The three men receiving fresh charges on Tuesday are Sun, Zhang, and Chen.

Chen Allegedly Received S$11.6 Million for Criminal Group’s Expenses

Chen’s new charge alleges he received S$11.6 million from an individual known as “Biao Ge”, which he purportedly spent on the rent, upkeep, and expenses of an organised criminal group, including Yan, Huang, Liu, and Sun.

This allegedly covers funding for the Mount Sinai bungalow. Of the total amount, Chen is accused of having “expended” about S$399,000 on 11 occasions between 2022 and 2024, under the Organised Crime Act.

Zhang faces new accusations of abetting two individuals—Lim Clovis Leslie and Lee Kok Leong—to obtain the personal information of unknown individuals on 28 July 2023.

Meanwhile, Sun has been charged with sending a file containing the personal information of 1,055 unknown individuals from South Korea to a WhatsApp chat group on 12 August 2023, while he was in Singapore.

Additionally, he is accused of receiving 772,500 USDT in cryptocurrency from a wallet belonging to co-accused Liu, which allegedly stemmed from criminal conduct.

Suspects Accused of Targeting Websites to Exploit Vulnerabilities and Trade Stolen Personal Data

Previous charges against the suspects depict them as targeting websites to scan for open ports and exploit vulnerabilities, offering to purchase personal information of Indian nationals from gambling websites, and sending a file containing the personal information of 9,369 individuals from Thailand to other parties.

According to a prosecutor’s submissions in unsuccessful bail reviews on 1 October, the Chinese nationals involved are foreigners engaged in syndicated, transnational offences, with amounts involved “in excess of S$1 million”.

The public hearing list indicates that Sun is defended by Mr Hong Qibin, Ms Elaine Cai, and Mr Daniel Chia from Coleman Street Chambers. Yan is represented by Mr Ong Kelvin from Contigo Law, while Chen is defended by Mr Steven John Lam from Templars Law.

Both Huang and Liu are represented by Mr Lee Teck Leng from Legal Clinic.

Zhang is defended by Mr Sunil Sudheesan and Ms Joyce Khoo from Quahe Woo & Palmer, and Goh is represented by Mr Soon Wei Song from Goh JP & Wong.

Sun and Chen are scheduled for bail reviews on 10 October. They have been remanded for approximately a month, while the other five men are set to return to court later this month.

In addition to the main group, two Malaysian men, Seow Gim Shen (42) and Kong Chien Hoi (39)  are facing charges in Singapore for conspiring to supply the personal information of 9,369 individuals from Thailand in a file sent from Singapore. They are expected to plead guilty next week.

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