A director of a security firm was sentenced to 10 months’ jail for bribing a Takashimaya’s senior manager with S$121,000 over more than three years to cover up a shortage in security guards.
The guard shortage happened at a Takashimaya store located in Ngee Ann City, resulting in the store suffering an estimated losses of about S$479,700 in liquidated damages that it was expected to receive if there was a shortfall in the number security officers supplied.
The director of White Knights Security Services, 30-year-old permanent resident Mandhir Singh Karpal Singh, was sentenced to jail on Monday (16 August) after pleading guilty to five counts of corruptly giving bribes to Takashimaya’s senior divisional manager Chan Kuen Thong.
Another 15 charges were also taken into consideration before delivering the sentence.
According to court documents, Chan joined Takashimaya in 1991 and was in charge of the company’s security department at the time of the offences. During that time, he reported directly to the mall’s deputy managing director and director.
On the other hand, Singh joined the security firm in 2013 by doing administration tasks before rising through the ranks and was promoted as the director in 2017.
In 2016, Chan was assigned to source for quotations from security agencies, and White Knights was one of the three companies that responded to Chan.
Following that, Takashimaya awarded the contract to White Knights on Chan’s recommendations.
The security firm signed three contracts with the departmental store chain, each promising to provide 18 security guards in the day shift and six in the night shift for a monthly rate of S$99,300.
If White Knights fails to provide the number of security officers agreed under the terms of the agreement, then the company would have to pay Takashimaya liquidated damages.
However, Singh had shortage of guards from the start in January 2017. He lacked three to five officers a day because of high frequency of leave and off days, as well as a high turnover rate.
In the second week of January 2017, Chan raised the shortfall issue to Singh, which caused some security posts being left unmanned.
Although Singh promised that he would solve this problem, but he could not, prompting Chan to call Singh to his office.
After Singh admitted that he could not solve the shortfall in security officers, Chan asked Singh to provide him kickbacks worth S$4,000 per month so Chan would not ask the security firm to pay liquidated damages to Takashimaya.
Despite knowing its legally wrong to do so, Singh agreed to pay Chan in order to save his company sums of between S$12,300 and S$20,500 per month.
He was also scared of losing the first “big” project he secured.
Between February 2017 and May 2020, Singh gave Chan a total of S$121,000 in cash bribes over 20 occasions in return for Chan to not issue claims for liquidated damages.
Due to this, the departmental store chain suffered an estimated loss of S$12,300 per month for 39 months, totalling to S$479,700.
The prosecutor has asked for at least 11 months’ jail for Singh, noting that the contract should have been terminated a month after it started but it lasted for 39 months in a corrupt arrangement.
“Takashimaya housed many shops selling high-end products. The supply of security officers helps deter incidents from happening and helps ensure a swift response if incidents do occur,” said the prosecutor.
“The fact that Chan realised security officers were missing from their posts meant that the shortage was a real, tangible and visible shortage.”
Chan’s trial will begin in October.
