Public Prosecutor v Ng Teck Boon

JudgeRichard Magnus
Judgment Date14 December 2005
Neutral Citation[2005] SGDC 273
Citation[2005] SGDC 273
CourtDistrict Court (Singapore)
Plaintiff CounselLau Wing Yum, Paul Chia & Tan Wen Hsien (Deputy Public Prosecutors)
Defendant CounselLeslie Chew, SC & Foo Cheow Ming & Vengadesh s/o Krishna Kumar (KhattarWong) and Philip Fong (Harry Elias Partnership)
Published date04 October 2006

14 December 2005

District Judge Richard Magnus:

The accused Ng Teck Boon, aged 37, was at all material times the Assistant General Manager of Citiraya Industries Ltd (‘Citiraya’). He faces a total of 193 charges. 96 of these charges arose from investigations by the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (‘CPIB’) while another 97 charges were investigated by the Commercial Affairs Department (‘CAD’). The offences were committed between 2003 to January 2005 and comprise the following sets of charges:

(a) 84 charges of abetting corruption under section 6 (b) of the Prevention of Corruption Act (Cap 241) read with section 109 of the Penal Code (Cap 224);

(b) 3 charges of abetting criminal breach of trust as a servant under section 408 read with section 109 of the Penal Code;

(c) 2 charges of abetting criminal breach of trust under section 406 read with section 109 of the Penal Code;

(d) 1 charge of abetting theft as a servant under section 381 read with section 109 of the Penal Code;

(e) 6 charges of abetting cheating under section 417 read with section 109 of the Penal Code; and

(f) 97 charges of abetting falsification of accounts under section 477A read with section 109 of the Penal Code.

2. The accused has pleaded guilty to 24 of these charges. They are:

(a) 11 charges under section 6 (b) of the Prevention of Corruption Act read with section 109 of the Penal Code (‘corruption charges’);

(b) 1 charge under section 408 read with section 109 of the Penal Code (‘CBT charge’); and

(c) 12 charges under s 477A read with section 109 of the Penal Code (‘falsification charges’).

3. He has also consented to having the remaining 169 charges taken into consideration by the Court for the purpose of sentencing.

Salient Facts

4. The facts of the case are set out in the supporting Statement of Facts tendered by the Prosecution. Part I of the Statement of Facts sets out the facts pertaining to the corruption and CBT charges investigated by the CPIB. Part II of the Statement of Facts sets out the facts relating to the falsification charges investigated by the CAD. The accused has admitted, without qualification, to the Statement of Facts.

The Corruption Charges

5. For convenience of reference, the 11 corruption charges proceeded with by the Prosecution may be grouped broadly as follows:

(a) 9 charges are for gratifications amounting to $312,000 given to two employees (Seow Teck Keng and Chan Kok Pew) of Advanced Micro Devices (Singapore) Pte Ltd (‘AMD’);

(b) 1 charge is for a gratification of $40,000 given to an employee (Wong Chin Farn) of ST Microelectronics Asia Pacific Pte Ltd (‘ST Micro’); and

(c) 1 charge is for a gratification of $43,000 given to an employee (Chang Kar Yang) of Seagate Technology International (‘Seagate’).

6. The facts in relation to these corruption charges are set out meticulously in Part I of the Statement of Facts. It is unnecessary for this Court to restate the facts save for some general observations. In gist, in relation to the first group of charges involving AMD, the Statement of Facts revealed that the accused had bribed two AMD staff Seow Teck Keng and Chan Kok Pew to ensure that electronic scrap from AMD delivered to Citiraya were not crushed completely. Seow was then the Senior Planner, Inventory Control in the Material Control Department of AMD while Chan was a Crusher in the Crushing Department of AMD. The duties of both Seow and Chan included ensuring that all electronic scrap was completely pre-crushed before it was transported to Citiraya. The bribes handed out to Seow and Chan were part of an elaborate scheme to circumvent safeguards put in place by AMD so that electronic scrap due for crushing could be diverted from the crushing process and resold to overseas syndicates. The scrap was then repackaged by these syndicates as bona fide products and distributed to overseas markets for sale.

7. The facts in relation to ST Micro involved a similar ploy to divert electronic scrap from the crushing process for the purpose of resale to the overseas syndicates. The accused had bribed Wong Chin Farn, a Sales Executive of ST Micro, to deliver uncrushed scrap to Citiraya. Wong did this by causing the ST Micro’s crushing machine to malfunction. Once the uncrushed scrap was delivered to Citiraya, Wong allowed it to remain uncrushed and did not, although he was required to, witness the crushing process.

8. The facts in relation to Seagate are of a different character. Essentially, they involved the bribery of Chang Kar Yang, a Surplus Asset Organisation Manager in the employ of Seagate. Chang, whose task was to arrange for tenders and invite vendors for the handlings of Seagate’s scrap material, was bribed into helping Citiraya clinch two contracts with Seagate.

9. The charges and the Statement of Facts averred that the accused had abetted Ng Teck Lee in the commission of these offences by intentionally aiding Ng Teck Lee to give out the said gratifications. The total amount of bribes handed over by the accused to the recipients in all the 84 corruption charges is almost S$1.82 million while the amount of bribes involved in these proceeded charges amounts to $395,000.

The CBT Charge

10. In respect of the CBT charge, the Statement of Facts disclosed that the accused had abetted Ng Teck Lee by intentionally aiding him to commit criminal breach of trust of Citiraya’s property. The accused had instructed some Citiraya employees that they were not to crush a portion of scrap delivered to Citiraya and that they were to sort, repackage and export it to Taiwan and Hong Kong buyers, which was done. The portion of scrap was exported to overseas buyers in 27 shipments, weighing a total of about 25,600 kg and with a total invoice value of about USD 22 million.

The falsification charges

11. The facts of the case in respect of the 12 falsification charges are set out in Part II of the Statement of Facts. Essentia lly, they involve three series of false sales accounts of the following companies: Citiraya, China Far East International Enterprise Pte Ltd (‘CFE’), Maxta Computer Pte Ltd (‘Maxta’), A.N. Technology Pte Ltd (‘ANTech’) and Citiraya Singapore Pte Ltd (‘Citiraya Singapore’).

12. In the first series of false sales accounts, Ng Teck Lee had persuaded the accused to create false sales invoices in order to meet the sales target set by the management of Citiraya and to camouflage the profit from the sale of illegally retained Intel Chips to ANTech. The second series adopted the modus operandus used in the first series of false sales. It involved the sale of a batch of computer chips from Citiraya Singapore to ANTech amidst a series of false sales. In the third series, the plan was to falsify the necessary documents such as sales orders and delivery orders to show that there was a sale of a batch of platinum powder at the price of approximately S$8 million from Citiraya Singapore to CFE.

Sentencing Considerations

13. The only remaining matter before the Court now is the appropriate sentence to be imposed on the accused. The aims of punishment are well established[note: 1]. The Court is mindful that there are three distinct types of offences the accused has been convicted on. Each type of offence carries with it distinct sentencing considerations and principles. In this respect the Court agrees with the sentencing principles set out in the Learned DPPs’ submission on sentence. The Court also paid very careful attention to Learned Senior Counsel’s written and eloquent oral mitigation plea as well as to the Learned DPPs’ reply to the mitigation plea.

14. In regard to the corruption offences, the sentencing principle is clear and applicable in the present case. The courts must do what they can to stop the spread of corruption in public and commercial life. All they can do is to show by the sentences passed that the giving and accepting of bribes will not be tolerated in this area. This must mean in most cases severe sentences. This is particularly so when bribery involves large sums[note: 2]. The Learned DPPs, in paragraph 34, of their submission correctly sets out the general principle that in the sentencing of corruption offences the giver of gratification bears equal culpability to that of the receiver and therefore sentences meted out should be similar, unless there are aggravating factors[note: 3]. The sentences on the receivers of the bribes in the corruption charges before the Court are set out in paragraph 43 of the Learned DPPs’ submis sion. There are, however, aggravating factors in this case.

15. For the falsification offences, two important sentencing factors could be distilled from the cases[note: 4], namely, whether there was deviousness or surreptitious planning; and whether the falsifications were committed for one’s personal gains.

16. Where an offence involves breach of trust, as in the charge before the Court, this is generally treated as an aggravating factor. Indeed, there is the paradox that some of the strongest factors in mitigation – unblemished record, model citizen, good employment record, as in the case of the accused - are often present in such an offence and yet do not tell greatly in the offender’s favour[note: 5]. This certainly applies in the present case.

17. Viewing globally, the seriousness of the 193 multiple charges systematically committed over a some 2-year period and the accused’s overall criminality of the distinct nefarious schemes warrant a custodial sentence.

18. These offences carry the maximum prescribed custodial punishments ranging from 5 years (corruption charges) to 7 years’ (falsification and CBT charges) imprisonment. Indeed, Parliament had deemed the offence under section 408 to be so serious as to prescribe a mandatory jail term upon conviction.

19. These 193 offences entailed exorbitant bribes totaling $1,817,060 and misappropriation of an astounding amount of electronic scrap sold worldwide. Of these scrap, US $50 million had been...

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