Law Society of Singapore v Yeo Siew Chye Troy

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Judge: Sundaresh Menon CJ
• Judgment Date: 29 April 2019
• Neutral Citation: [2019] SGHC 115
• Court: Court of Appeal (Singapore)
• Docket Number: Originating Summons No 13 of 2018
• Year: 2019
• Published date: 09 May 2019
• Hearing Date: 29 April 2019
• Plaintiff Counsel: Vergis S Abraham and Bestlyn Loo (Providence Law Asia LLC)
• Defendant Counsel: Kenneth Tan SC (Kenneth Tan Partnership)
• Subject Matter: Legal Profession,Disciplinary Proceedings
• Citation: [2019] SGHC 115

Sundaresh Menon CJ (delivering the judgment of the court ex tempore): Background

Yeo Siew Chye Troy (“the respondent”) was admitted as an advocate and solicitor of the Supreme Court of Singapore on 9 February 1983. At the time of the proceedings before the Disciplinary Tribunal (“DT”) that was appointed to hear and investigate the complaints against him, he was an advocate and solicitor of the Supreme Court of around 35 years’ standing. From 5 April 2008, the respondent has been the sole proprietor and sole director of the firm Troy Yeo & Co (known as Chye Legal Practice since May 2012) (“the firm”).

Sometime in the middle of 2011, the respondent engaged one Sim Tee Peng (“Sim”) to establish a conveyancing department in the firm. There was some dispute as to Sim’s precise status in the firm but we proceed on the basis that he was engaged as an employee, which was the respondent’s position. It should be noted that this was the first time the respondent would be working with Sim as he had met Sim just in or around January that year. It would also be the first time the respondent would be managing and running a conveyancing department. Prior to this, the respondent practised principally in litigation with some limited experience in transactional and conveyancing work.

Between June 2011 and March 2012, the respondent permitted Sim to interact directly with the firm’s conveyancing clients, most of whom had evidently been introduced to the firm by Sim in any case, and to liaise with them on payment matters including the collection of payments for stamp duty and other conveyancing moneys. Unbeknownst to the respondent, Sim used the opportunity he was afforded during this period to commit cheating and/or criminal breach of trust offences in respect of conveyancing moneys he collected from 17 clients, and misappropriated a total sum of $848,335.09. Amongst other things, Sim falsely informed these clients that he had made payments for stamp duty and other conveyancing-related fees on their behalf.

Also within this period, specifically between 31 August 2011 and 19 October 2011, the respondent caused conveyancing moneys amounting to $448,803, paid by 22 clients, to be paid into the firm’s office account. It was accepted by the respondent that these moneys should not have been paid into the firm’s office account but we were told that this had been done because those managing the accounts were under the mistaken impression that it was permissible to do so as long as these payments were effectively to reimburse payments that had already been made on behalf of the clients in question. Accordingly, a substantial portion of these moneys was then paid out to Sim personally who represented to the firm that he had already made payments out of his own funds in respect of the stamp duty payments that were due from the clients. In truth, most of these representations were false; Sim had not in fact made payments out of his own funds and the clients had submitted the cheques to the firm to enable the firm to make the stamp duty payments for them, but Sim produced forged stamp duty certificates to mislead the firm and thereby obtain payments purportedly by way of reimbursement.

Decision

We begin by setting out a number of points which were accepted before us today. The respondent accepts that: he has failed to exercise proper supervision over his employee Sim between June 2011 and March 2012, and thus breached r 8(1) of the Legal Profession (Professional Conduct) Rules (Cap 161, R 1, 2010 Rev Ed) – although he contested this before the DT, his counsel, Mr Kenneth Tan SC, was at pains to point out that he was not challenging this before us; he breached the relevant rules of the Legal Profession (Solicitors’ Accounts) Rules (Cap 161, R 8, 1999 Rev Ed) (“LPSAR”) (including r 3(1A)) and the Conveyancing and Law of Property (Conveyancing) Rules 2011 (S 391/2011), by allowing a substantial sum of conveyancing moneys to be paid into the firm’s office account between 31 August 2011 and 19 October 2011; in relation to five client payments into the firm’s office account made between 4 October 2011 and 19 October 2011, which amounted to $90,256.60, he did not keep proper accounts, and thus breached r 11(1) of the LPSAR; and his conduct as a whole warrants disciplinary sanctions being imposed by this court, meaning he accepts that he was guilty of grossly improper conduct in the discharge of his professional duty under s 83(2)(b) or of such misconduct unbefitting an advocate and solicitor as an officer of the Supreme Court or as a member of an honourable profession under s 83(2)(h) of the Legal Profession Act (Cap 161, 2009 Rev Ed) (“LPA”) – in response to a question from the Bench, Mr Tan accepted that in relation to all of the charges, the respondent was guilty of such misconduct within the meaning of either of these provisions although we note that the charges were brought pursuant to s 83(2)(b).

In those circumstances, the only issue before us is that of the...