Lian Soon Shipping & Trading Co (Pte) Ltd v Public Prosecutor

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Judge: Wee Chong Jin CJ
• Judgment Date: 28 June 1984
• Neutral Citation: [1984] SGHC 18
• Docket Number: Magistrate's Appeal No 22 of 1983
• Date: 28 June 1984
• Year: 1984
• Published date: 19 September 2003
• Plaintiff Counsel: G Pannirselvam (Drew & Napier)
• Citation: [1984] SGHC 18
• Defendant Counsel: Spencer Gwee (Deputy Public Prosecutor)
• Court: High Court (Singapore)
• Subject Matter: Pay,s 2 Central Provident Fund Act (Cap 121),Whether fixed payments made as 'genuine pre-estimates of expenses' incurred by crew,Whether remuneration included fixed payments to cover genuine pre-estimates of an expense of a particular type of employee,Provident Fund,s 7(1) Central Provident Fund Act (Cap 121),Words and Phrases,Employer's failure to contribute to employees' CPF,'Remuneration',Contributions,Definition of wages,Employment Law,Collective agreement,Whether payments to bunkering crew 'genuine pre-estimates of expenses necessarily incurred by the crew',Central Provident Fund contributions

The appellant company was convicted by a magistrate`s court on eight charges of failing to pay contributions to the Central Provident Fund in respect of eight employees of the company as required by s 7(1) of the Central Provident Fund Act (the Act). The company now appeals.

The undisputed facts are as follows. The eight employees named in the eight charges were locally engaged by the company on ships owned by the company which were engaged in the company`s harbour trade of supplying bunkers for ships that come into Singapore territorial waters for bunkers. The nature of their employment required them to stay on board the vessel on which they worked for 24 hours at a stretch with alternate days off. Prior to 30 May 1974 employees of the company who were engaged to work on board the company`s vessels which supplied bunkers were provided with free meals on board. On 30 May 1974 the company entered into a collective agreement covering a period of two years from 1 January 1974 to 31 December 1975 with the Singapore Industrial Labour Union (the union), a trade union registered under the Trade Union Act (Cap 129) which covered all locally engaged bunkering employees of the company in Singapore with the exception of managerial, executive, confidential, probationary employees and any temporary employees engaged for a period not exceeding the aggregate of three months in any year. All the eight employees were members of the union who came within the scope of the collective agreement and three subsequent collective agreements each of which covered a period of two calendar years. In each of the these collective agreements there is a Clause providing for the payment of a fixed monthly `food allowance` to such employees. The amount of the monthly food allowance depends on whether the employee is in the class of `Captain, first or second Engine Driver, Bunkering Clerk` or in the class of `Serang; Quarter Master, Sailor or Greasor`.

The defence, which was rejected by the magistrate, was that the company was not obliged under the Act to pay contributions in respect of such employees. It was contended that the `food allowances` paid to employees under the collective agreements are not `wages` within the meaning of that expression as defined in s 2 of the Act. The relevant provisions of the Act are s 2, s 7(1) and (2) and the Schedule to the Act, which, so far as material, read as follows:

Section 2

In this Act, unless the context otherwise

...