Public Prosecutor v Ang Tse Aun Damien

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Judge: Wong Keen Onn
• Judgment Date: 21 July 2006
• Neutral Citation: [2006] SGDC 147
• Court: District Court (Singapore)
• Published date: 04 October 2006
• Year: 2006
• Plaintiff Counsel: DPP Lionel Yee with Jarred Pereira and Quek Hui Ling
• Defendant Counsel: Wee Pan Lee (Wee Tay & Lim)
• Citation: [2006] SGDC 147

21 July 2006

District Judge Wong Keen Onn

Background

1. The accused, Ang Tse Aun Damien, aged 36 years, was at the material time a Manager of Accord Customer Care Solutions Limited (“ACCS”). He was first charged in Court on 23 September 2005 and faced a total of 93 charges. They comprise the following:

(a) 43 charges of conspiracy to cheat under s. 420 read with s. 109 of the Penal Code, and

(b) 50 counts of falsification of documents under s. 477A read with s. 109 Penal Code (hereinafter also referred to as the “forgery charges”)

2. The charges of conspiracy to cheat and falsification of documents averred that the accused and one Victor Tan were involved with one Yip Hwai Chong (Ken Yip) in the commission of the cheating offences and that he had falsified documents (“forgery charges”). It would be useful to briefly mention as background information the sequence of events for the respective cases against each of the accused persons. Ken Yip had pleaded guilty earlier in a District Court to similar charges on 13 February 2006 and was sentenced on 21 February 2006. The accused and another co-accused Victor Tan initially indicated that they wish to claim trial. At that time, the co-accused Victor Tan and Sim Ee Tong objected to the prosecution’s application to proceed first to trial on only the forgery charges and SFA charges against Victor Tan as well for a joinder of 3 accused persons (Victor Tan, Damien Ang and Sim Ee Tong) at one trial. A preliminary hearing on these joinder issues was conducted on 17 March 2006. At that preliminary hearing, counsel for the accused Damien Ang asked to be excused from the hearing as he was not making submissions on the joinder issue but was making a plea bargain with the prosecution. This was granted by the District Court. After hearing arguments, the District Court then overruled Victor Tan’s and Sim Ee Tong’s objections (see PP v Victor Tan and 2 Ors [2006] SGDC 55). Thereafter, cases against the accused persons were set down for trial.

The charges

3. On the first day of the trial on 22 May 2006, the accused indicated to the court his willingness to plead guilty and parties sought an adjournment to 25 May 2006. On 25 May 2006, the accused pleaded guilty to 20 charges, namely:

(a) 5 counts of conspiracy to commit cheating under s. 420 read with s. 109 Penal Code (“aggravated cheating charges”) and

(b) 15 counts under s. 477A read with s. 109 Penal Code (“falsification charges” or “forgery charges”)

4. A copy of the 5^th charge, which is similar to the other cheating charges, is reproduced below for reference:

DAC 42390/2005 – 5^th charge (P2A)

You, Ang Tse Aun Damien, M/36 yrs, NRIC No: S7004505B, are charged that you, sometime in late 2003, as the General Manager of Accord Customer Care Solutions Limited (“ACCS”), did engage in a conspiracy with one Victor Tan Hor Peow and one Yip Hwai Chong, to cheat Nokia Pte Ltd (“Nokia”) by way of fictitious warranty repair claims of Nokia mobile telephones, and in pursuance of the conspiracy and in order to the doing of that thing, an ACCS invoice (invoice number NSC04050005) dated 5 June 2004 for the sum of S$115,547.38 was submitted to Nokia, which deceived Nokia into believing that it has incurred the sum of S$115,547.38 as warranty repair claims for the month of May 2004, and thereby dishonestly induced Nokia to pay the sum of S$115,547.38 to ACCS, which act was committed in consequence of your abetment, and you have thereby committed an offence punishable under Section 420 of the Penal Code (Chapter 224) read with Section 109 of the Penal Code (Chapter 224).

5. Also, copies of two of the “forgery” charges, the 65^th and 72^nd charges, are reproduced below for reference:

DAC 50153/2005 – 65^th charge (P15A)

You, Ang Tse Aun Damien, M/36 yrs, NRIC No: S7004505B, are charged that you, on or about June 2004, in Singapore, being an officer Accord Customer Care Solutions Limited (“ACCS”) namely its General Manager, did wilfully and with intent to defraud falsify a paper belonging to ACCS, to wit, a Delivery Order (number SCS 2004-10), which falsely stated that 115,000 units of refurbished phones were delivered from ACCS to PT Selular Communication Services, and you have thereby committed an offence punishable under Section 477A of the Penal Code (Chapter 224, 1985 Revised Edition).

DAC 50162/2005 – 74^th charge (P18A)

You, Ang Tse Aun Damien, M/36 yrs, NRIC No: S7004505B, are charged that you, on or about November 2004, in Singapore, being an officer Accord Customer Care Solutions Limited (“ACCS”) namely its General Manager, did wilfully and with intent to defraud falsify a paper belonging to ACCS, to wit, a Tax Invoice (number 1800001704), which falsely stated that refurbishment jobs done from January to October 2004 in Thailand for CSL Customer Care Centre (M) Sdn Bhd amounted to S$6,600,000.00, and you have thereby committed an offence punishable under Section 477A of the Penal Code (Chapter 224, 1985 Revised Edition).

7. Upon his conviction on these twenty charges, the accused consented to 63 other charges be taken into consideration for purposes of sentencing. These comprise 38 counts of conspiracy to commit aggravated cheating under s. 420 read with section 109 Penal Code and 25 counts of falsification of documents under s. 477A read with s. 109 Penal Code.

8. Another 10 charges under s. 477A read with s. 109 of the Penal Code (DAC 50172/05 to 50181/05 inclusive) were stood down as the prosecution indicated they intend to apply for a discharge not amounting to an acquittal for these charges after sentencing.

9. As for mitigation, Counsel Mr Wee Pan Lee applied to the Court for a one month adjournment to await the outcome of another related proceeding in the High Court (High Court Suit No 488/2005/4) on a civil matter concerning a dispute on the sale of shares between the accused and another party as well as to prepare the mitigation plea. As prosecution did not object to this, the Court granted the application.

Facts

10. The above mentioned offences were related to incidents committed between November 2003 and late 2004 arising from a conspiracy that was hatched in late 2003. The offences against the accused person can be grouped into 2 broad categories. The first concerned the cheating charges in which the accused had abetted others in cheating Nokia Pte Ltd by submitting fraudulent claims for mobile telephone repair work that had not been carried out. For the 5 proceeded charges, the number and the value of the fictitious claims were 4,701 and $135,892.00 respectively whilst the respective figures for all the charges including those taken into consideration were 16,799 fictitious claims which amounted to $360,387.00

11. The second set of charges relate to falsification of delivery orders and tax invoices to support the existence of sham refurbishment business in its subsidiaries for services for used mobile telephones to various companies. The purpose behind this conspiracy was to inflate the revenue and profits of ACCS in its financial statements. The value of work in the false delivery orders and invoices in the 15 proceeded charges under s 477A Penal Code was $32,367,500.00 whilst the amount in all the falsified delivery orders and tax invoices was $59,162,606.80.

12. In pleading guilty, the accused admitted to the amended Statement of Facts (Exhibit C) without qualification. The relevant portions are reproduced below for easy reference:

“The Accused

The Accused is Damien Ang Tse Aun (“Damien”), NRIC No. S7004505B, was at all material times the general manager of Accord Customer Care Solutions Limited (“ACCS”).

Accord Customer Care Solutions Limited

2. Accord Customer Care Solutions Pte Ltd (“ACCSPL”) was registered with the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority in October 2000. ACCSPL was listed on the Singapore Exchange in March 2003 and was thereafter named ACCS.

3. ACCS’ principal activity is to provide after-market services like the repair and maintenance of mobile communication and high-tech consumer products. ACCS operates a large network of service centres in the Asia-Pacific region comprising over 350 service centres in cities across 15 countries.

4. [Not used]

5. At the time of the offences, the Accused’s role as the general manager of ACCS was to oversee the running of ACCS’ Singapore operations.

6. The following is a simplified representation of the structure of ACCS at the material time. Solid lines show the subsidiaries of ACCS and dotted lines show companies which were controlled by ACCS’ senior management or their appointees:

LawNetAdminNote: Click on the link to the PDF above to see Image 1]

ACCS’ Dealings With Nokia Pte Ltd (“Nokia”)

7. Nokia was one of several mobile phone manufacturers that had a contract with ACCS for the provision of after-market services, which included the warranty and non-warranty repair of mobile telephones, maintenance of spare parts, customer service support for end-users as well as warranty verifications and tracing via proof of purchase. ACCS provided these after-market services through dedicated Nokia Care Centres located around Singapore. ACCS was Nokia’s sole provider of after-market services in Singapore after 1 July 2004.

8. Under the contract, ACCS would invoice Nokia to claim for the repair by ACCS of Nokia mobile telephones which were still within Nokia’s warranty period upon completion of the repair work. Subsequently, Nokia would pay ACCS for the repair work after processing ACCS’ repair claims.

9. The following table summarises the process of how claims for the repair of mobile telephones were made by ACCS to Nokia:

STEP	PROCESS
1.	Customer walks in. Attended to by Customer Service Officer who takes down all the relevant information from the customer.
2.	Information keyed into, ACCS’ in-house computerised system, ACROSS. A service job card is generated and the telephone is sent to the technician within the Nokia Care...