Public Prosecutor v Wong Poon Kay

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Judge: Brenda Chua
• Judgment Date: 25 August 2023
• Neutral Citation: [2023] SGDC 187
• Court: District Court (Singapore)
• Docket Number: District Arrest Case No. 910272-2021 & others, Magistrate’s Appeal No. 9141 of 2023-01
• Hearing Date: 12 April 2023,19 July 2023,26 July 2023
• Citation: [2023] SGDC 187
• Year: 2023
• Plaintiff Counsel: Edwin Soh (Attorney-General's Chambers)
• Defendant Counsel: Mato Kotwani and Chua Ze Xuan (PDLegal LLC)
• Subject Matter: Criminal Law,Offences,Penal Code,Statutory offences,Companies Act,Criminal Procedure and Sentencing,Sentencing
• Published date: 30 September 2023

District Judge Brenda Chua: Introduction

This case involved a total of 22 charges. The accused, Wong Poon Kay, pleaded guilty to seven charges (“the Charges”), which are set out below:

DAC-910272-2021 (“the Companies Act charge”)

You…are charged that you, being a director of Manford Pte Ltd (“Manford”) in Singapore from 17 December 2009 to 6 July 2011, did fail to exercise reasonable diligence in the discharge of your duties as a director of Manford, to wit, by failing to exercise supervision over the transactions in the DBS Bank Ltd account no. [xxx] belonging to Manford, and you have thereby acted in breach of Section 157(1) of the Companies Act (Cap 50, 2006 Rev Ed) and committed an offence punishable under Section 157(3)(b) of the said Act.

DAC-910276-2021

You…are charged that you, on 13 January 2010, in Singapore, did abet by engaging in a conspiracy with one Kassem Mohammad Chehab (“Chehab”) to do a certain thing, namely, to dishonestly receive stolen property, and in pursuance of the conspiracy and in order to the doing of that thing, an act took place, to wit, you assisted Chehab in incorporating Manford Pte Ltd and setting up its DBS Bank Ltd account no. [xxx] which Chehab used to dishonestly receive stolen property amounting to USD 60,000 on 6 May 2010 from Anamma Tharakan, which you had reason to believe was stolen property, which offence was committed in consequence of your abetment, and you have therefore committed an offence under section 411(1) read with section 109 of the Penal Code (Cap 224, 2008 Rev Ed).

DAC-910282-2021

You…are charged that you, on 13 January 2010, in Singapore, did abet by engaging in a conspiracy with one Kassem Mohammad Chehab (“Chehab”) to do a certain thing, namely, to dishonestly receive stolen property, and in pursuance of the conspiracy and in order to the doing of that thing, an act took place, to wit, you assisted Chehab in incorporating Manford Pte Ltd and setting up its DBS Bank Ltd account no. [xxx] which Chehab used to dishonestly receive stolen property amounting to USD 20,552.93 on 20 May 2010 from John Henry Dunn Jr, which you had reason to believe was stolen property, which offence was committed in consequence of your abetment, and you have therefore committed an offence under section 411(1) read with section 109 of the Penal Code (Cap 224, 2008 Rev Ed).

DAC-910283-2021

You…are charged that you, on 18 December 2009, in Singapore, did abet by engaging in a conspiracy with one Kassem Mohammad Chehab (“Chehab”) to do a certain thing, namely, to dishonestly receive stolen property, and in pursuance of the conspiracy and in order to the doing of that thing, an act took place, to wit, you assisted Chehab in incorporating Centure Smith Pte Ltd and setting up its Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation, Limited account no. [xxx], which Chehab used to dishonestly receive stolen property amounting to USD 89,975 on 9 February 2010 from Assetbacked Finance Pty Ltd, which you had reason to believe was stolen property, which offence was committed in consequence of your abetment, and you have therefore committed an offence under section 411(1) read with section 109 of the Penal Code (Cap 224, 2008 Rev Ed).

DAC-910284-2021

You…are charged that you, on 8 September 2010, in Singapore, did abet by engaging in a conspiracy with one Kassem Mohammad Chehab (“Chehab”) to do a certain thing, namely, to dishonestly receive stolen property, and in pursuance of the conspiracy and in order to the doing of that thing, an act took place, to wit, you assisted Chehab in incorporating Double Loop International Co., Ltd and setting up its HSBC bank account no. [xxx], which Chehab used to dishonestly receive stolen property amounting to USD 20,849 on 18 November 2010 from Comming S.R.O., which you had reason to believe was stolen property, which offence was committed in consequence of your abetment, and you have therefore committed an offence under section 411(1) read with section 109 of the Penal Code (Cap 224, 2008 Rev Ed).

DAC-910286-2021

You…are charged that you, on 2 December 2010, in Singapore, did abet by engaging in a conspiracy with one Kassem Mohammad Chehab (“Chehab”) to do a certain thing, namely, to dishonestly receive stolen property, and in pursuance of the conspiracy and in order to the doing of that thing, an act took place, to wit, you assisted Chehab in incorporating Goodwill International Co. Ltd and setting up its HSBC bank account no. [xxx], which Chehab used to dishonestly receive stolen property amounting to USD 183,300 on 6 January 2011 from Travis Donnelly, which you had reason to believe was stolen property, which offence was committed in consequence of your abetment, and you have therefore committed an offence under section 411(1) read with section 109 of the Penal Code (Cap 224, 2008 Rev Ed).

DAC-910287-2021

You…are charged that you, on 2 December 2010, in Singapore, did abet by engaging in a conspiracy with one Kassem Mohammad Chehab (“Chehab”) to do a certain thing, namely, to dishonestly receive stolen property, and in pursuance of the conspiracy and in order to the doing of that thing, an act took place, to wit, you assisted Chehab in incorporating Goodwill International Co. Ltd and setting up its HSBC bank account no. [xxx], which Chehab used to dishonestly receive stolen property amounting to USD 25,000 on 10 February 2011 from Travis Donnelly, which you had reason to believe was stolen property, which offence was committed in consequence of your abetment, and you have therefore committed an offence under section 411(1) read with section 109 of the Penal Code (Cap 224, 2008 Rev Ed).

The accused admitted to and consented to 15 charges to be taken into consideration for the purpose of sentencing (“TIC charges”). The TIC charges were for similar offences, comprising five charges under section 157(1) read with section 157(3)(b) of the Companies Act (Cap. 50, 2006 Revised Edition) and ten charges under section 411(1) read with section 109 of the Penal Code (Cap. 224, 2008 Rev Ed).

I imposed a global sentence of 24 months in the following manner:

DAC-910272-2021 (the Companies Act charge)	Four weeks’ imprisonment (concurrent)
DAC-910276-2021 (USD 60,000 or SGD 83,4661)	Five months’ imprisonment (consecutive)
DAC-910282-2021 (USD 20,552.93 or SGD 28,753.55)	Three months’ imprisonment (concurrent)
DAC-910283-2021 (USD 89,975 or SGD 127,917.46)	Seven months’ imprisonment (consecutive)
DAC-910284-2021 (USD 20,849 or SGD 27,087.02)	Three months’ imprisonment (concurrent)
DAC-910286-2021 (USD 183,300 or SGD 237,080.22)	12 months’ imprisonment (consecutive)
DAC-910287-2021 (USD 25,000 or SGD 31,895)	Three months’ imprisonment (concurrent)

I bore in mind the one-transaction rule and the totality principle as set out in Mohamed Shouffee bin Adam v Public Prosecutor [2014] 2 SLR 998. I ordered the sentences for three charges to run consecutively. These charges covered separate time periods.

Pursuant to section 154 of the Companies Act, I ordered that the accused be disqualified as a director of any company and from directly or indirectly taking part in the management of any company with effect from the date of conviction and to continue for a period of five years after his release from prison (“the disqualification order”).

The accused is presently on bail pending appeal. The accused appealed against the sentence. He is not appealing against the disqualification order, as confirmed by the defence counsel in court on 26 July 2023. I set out here my reasons for the sentence imposed in respect of the Charges.

Facts

The accused admitted to the Statement of Facts without qualification. In the Statement of Facts: “1. The accused is Wong Poon Kay, a male Singaporean (date of birth: 24 January 1960). He also goes by the name Patrick. 2. In 2008 to around mid 2010 (sic), the accused was a Manager at Biz Corp Management Pte Ltd (“Biz Corp”). Biz Corp was a company that provided corporate and secretarial services, such as company incorporation and provision of nominee directors. Part of the accused’s job at Biz Corp was to help Biz Corp’s clients incorporate companies. 3. Sometime in around November 2008, the accused became acquainted with the co-accused, one Kassem Mohammad Chehab (“Chehab”). Chehab does not reside in Singapore and is a British national. 4. Chehab approached Biz Corp as a client. He informed the accused that he owned a construction company and wanted to set up companies in Singapore because of the low tax rate. The accused assisted Chehab in incorporating several companies, which included the following 8 companies:

S/No.	Company Name	Incorporation Date	Incorporation location	Nominee Director
1.	Russneft Pte Ltd (“Russneft”)	1 December 2008	Singapore	Accused
2.	Areba Pte Ltd (“Areba”)	1 December 2008	Singapore	Accused
3.	Montreal Elegance Pte Ltd	30 June 2009	Singapore	Accused
4.	Best Universal Pte Ltd	17 December 2009	Singapore	Accused
5.	Manford Pte Ltd (“Manford”)	17 December 2009	Singapore	Accused
6.	Centure Smith Pte Ltd (“Centure”)	17 December 2009	Singapore	Accused
7.	Double Loop International Co., Ltd (“Double Loop”)	23 June 2010	Belize	None
8.	Goodwill International Co. Ltd (“Goodwill”)	6 October 2010	Belize	None

5. By the time of the incorporation of Double Loop and Goodwill, the accused was employed at another corporate secretarial service provider, Power Point Management. The accused brought Chehab over to Power Point Management as a client. 6. Other than assisting Chehab in the incorporation of the above companies, the accused acted as a nominee director for the Singapore...