District Judge Marvin Bay:
INTRODUCTION
The accused, Vignish Vijelal, presently aged 37, faced ten charges of cheating under s 420 of the Penal Code read with s 109 of Code (Chapter 224, 2008 Revised Edition) (“PC”). Each charge had involved the accused abetting by instigation Lal Marine & Construction Pte Ltd (“Lal Marine”) to cheat Capital Match Platform Pte Ltd (“Capital Match”), by his instruction of one Alexandreia Aneeka Teles to submit as genuine invoices to Capital Match, under a factoring agreement between Lal Marine and Capital Match, which invoice was for services purportedly provided by Lal Marine to Keppel FELS Ltd under works orders which were proven to be false.
The charges
For reference the first of the ten proceeded charges reads:
(Mr Vignish is) charged that (he), on or about 30 August 2016, in Singapore, did abet by instigating Lal Marine & Construction Pte Ltd (“LMC”) to cheat Capital Match Platform Pte Ltd (“CMP”), to wit, (he) instructed one Alexandreia Aneeka Teles to submit as genuine invoice number 321 (dated 30 August 2016) to CMP, under a factoring agreement between LMC and CMP, which invoice was for services purportedly provided by LMC to Keppel FELS Ltd (“KFELS”) under works order 16000595 / 000 OS (dated 17 February 2016), when (he) knew that the said invoice was not genuine, as the amount stated in the invoice was not owed by KFELS to LMC, and in consequence of your instigation, CMP was deceived into believing that it could collect payment of S$390,000 for the said invoice from KFELS, and by such manner of deception, CMP was dishonestly induced into delivering S$312,000 into LMC’s United Overseas Bank Account XX on 30 August 2016, and (he had) thereby committed an offence under section 420 read with section 109 of the Penal Code (Chapter 224, 2008 Revised Edition) (“PC”).
[Emphasis added]
Parties involved
At the material time, Mr Vignish was Lal Marine’s sole director, while its sole shareholder was the accused’s younger brother. Capital Match had entered into 10 factoring agreements with Lal Marine, pursuant to which, Capital Match delivered a total of $1,362,560.75 to Lal Marine. The accused has allegedly used documentation from dealings between Keppel FELS Ltd (“Keppel FELS”) where the company had dealt with Lal Offshore Marine Pte Ltd (“Lal Offshore”) a sister company of Lal Marine, which had been awarded contracts (known as works orders) to carry out blasting and painting works on ships and oil rigs that Keppel FELS was constructing. At the material time, the accused and his father were Lal Offshore’s directors; and Mr Vignish’s father was Lal Offshore’s sole shareholder.
Background
The cheating offences against Capital Match were allegedly committed through factoring agreements. Simply put, factoring is a process where an invoice seller, usually a company that has sold goods or provided services, sells their unpaid invoice to a financing company, to allow the said seller to receive payment on the invoice immediately. This allows the immediate receipt of payment due under the invoice. Invoices typically had credit terms of 30 to 90 days or even longer. The selling of unpaid invoices thus allowed the receiving company to receive monies “upfront” to facilitate their commercial operations.
There were three critical documents in the factoring process. The first would be the works order from the company commissioning the works, in this case Keppel FELS. The next document would be the invoice of the other company in the transaction showing that a bill had been rendered for payment within the stipulated credit terms. The final essential document would be the job completion report confirming that the works billed had actually been performed to a state of completion.
In this case, 10 invoices, which Lal Marine had purportedly issued to Keppel FELS (“the 10 Lal Marine invoices”), were submitted to Capital Match for factoring. Every time one of 10 Lal Marine invoices was submitted, it was accompanied by a works order purportedly between Lal Marine and Keppel FELS, under which Lal Marine had ostensibly been awarded shipyard works (such as painting and blasting of vessels) by Keppel FELS along with job completion reports. These were invariably signed by one Ko Kok Keen Eric (“Eric Ko”; PW6), an employee of Keppel FELS, certifying that the stipulated painting and blasting works were completed satisfactorily.
It was the prosecution’s contention that the submission of each of the 10 Lal Marine invoices for factoring, Lal Marine necessarily held out and represented that the amount stated on the invoice was a bona fide and enforceable debt owed to Lal Marine by Keppel FELS, and secondly, that Lal Marine had assigned this debt to Capital Match. On this basis, Capital Match agreed to factor each of the 10 Lal Marine invoices and delivered $1,362,560.75 to Lal Marine’s United Overseas Bank (“UOB”) account.
Modus operandi
These representations made to Capital Match were unfortunately false as Keppel FELS did not, in fact, owe any debt to Lal Marine. There is no dispute that each of the 10 Lal Marine works orders was forged, there being no contract between Lal Marine and Keppel FELS in relation to the painting and blasting works stated on the 10 Lal Marine works orders. For each of the 10 Lal Marine works orders, there had been a corresponding genuine works order between Lal Offshore and Keppel FELS, for essentially the same work.
Amounts due in works orders were inflated figures and had been already exhausted or otherwise settled via separate factoring arrangements
Analyses done in the course of investigations revealed that on some of the Lal Marine works orders, the amount owed by Keppel FELS had been inflated. It should also be noted that most of the debt owed by Keppel FELS under the Lal Offshore works orders had already been settled as Lal Offshore had a pre-existing factoring arrangement with DBS Bank. Well before the Lal Marine invoices were factored, Lal Offshore had invoiced Keppel FELS, and been duly paid by Keppel FELS to DBS Bank, under Lal Offshore’s own existing factoring arrangement.
Details of the various proceeded charges
To assist in following the evidence and analysis in these grounds, the salient details of the invoices and disbursed amounts upon which the 10 proceeded charges were predicated are set out below:
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| No | Charge No | Invoice number, date and book value | Works order | Amount | Date disbursed |
| 1 | DAC-916744-2018 | Invoice 0321 dated 30 Aug 2016 for S$390,000 | Works order 16000595 dated 17 Feb 20162 | $312,000 | 30 Aug 2016 |
| 2 | DAC-916745-2018 | Invoice 0322 dated 6 Sep 2016 for S$75,000 | Works order 16001912 dated 8 Jun 2016 | $60,000 | 7 Sep 2016 |
| 3 | DAC-916746-2018 | Invoice 0323 dated 9 Sep 2016 for S$180,000 | Works order 16002370 dated 25 Jul 2016 | $84,506.25 | 9 Sep 2016 |
| 4 | DAC-916747-2018 | Invoice 0324 dated 15 Sep 2016 for S$135,000 | Works order 15005796 dated 17 Sep 2015 | $107,842 | 16 Sep 2016 |
| 5 | DAC-916748-2018 | Invoice 0329 dated 21 Sep 2016 for S$370,000 | Works order 15007194 dated 11 Dec 2015 | $243,500 | 23 Sep 2016 |
| 6 | DAC-916749-2018 | Invoice 0330 dated 26 Sep 2016 for S$200,000 | Works order 15006170 dated 6 Oct 2015 | $141,212.50 | 27 Sep 2016 |
| 7 | DAC-916750-2018 | Invoice 0331 dated 4 Oct 2016 for S$150,000 | Works order 16001572 dated 5 May 2016 | $98,500 | 4 Oct 2016 |
| 8 | DAC-916751-2018 | Invoice 0332 dated 10 Oct 2016 for S$200,000 | Works order 16001347 dated 20 Apr 2016 | $100,000 | 10 Oct 2016 |
| 9 | DAC-916752-2018 | Invoice 0334 dated 19 Oct 2016 for S$124,800 | Works order 15004119 dated 17 Jun 201518 | $75,000 | 20 Oct 2016 |
| 10 | DAC-916753-2018 | Invoice 0337 dated 25 Oct 2016 for S$350,000 | Works order 16002206 dated 7 Jul 2016 | $140,000 | 27 Oct 2016 |
| | Total | | | $1,362,560.75 | |
Involved parties
In the course of a 25-day trial which included video-conferenced testimony from a witness in Poland and facilitated in collaboration with the Polish District Courts, the prosecution called the following individuals to give testimonial evidence:
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| No | Name | Role | Designated as |
| 1. | Song Yuzhu (Cheryl Song) | Credit Operation Executive for Capital Match | PW1 |
| 2. | Sharath Chandra Singh | Commercial Director for Capital Match | PW2 |
| 3 | Huang Zhen Wei | Relationship manager later head of credit for Capital Match | PW3 |
| 4 | Tng Yong Sheng | Assistant subcontract manager at Keppel FELS Limited | PW4 |
| 5 | Chiam Huey San (Celine Chiam) | Finance executive in Keppel FELS Limited | PW5 |
| 6 | Ko Kok Keen (Eric Ko) | Painting manager in Keppel FELS | PW6 |
| 7 | Jane Lim | Deputy Superintendent of Police, Commercial Affairs Department | PW7 |
| 8 | Teles Alexandreia Aneeka | Employee of Lal Offshore Marine | PW8 |
| 9 | Pawel Kuznicki | Director and CEO of Capital Match | PW9 |
| 10 | Ng Shi Yun | Senior subcontracting manager with Keppel FELS Limited | PW10 |
Stipulation by accused
The prosecution had framed the charge to assert that Mr Vignish had intentionally instigated Lal Marine to deceive Capital Match, whereupon the latter was dishonestly induced into delivering property to Lal Marine. The prosecution had also asserted that Mr Vignish “knew all the circumstances constituting the crime. In other words, (that Capital Match) would be deceived by a false representation by Lal Marine, and that deception would dishonestly induce Capital Match into delivering moneys to Lal Marine”.
Claim that two employees of Lal Marine were the prime movers of scheme to defraud Capital Match
The defence did...
