Considered a test cast, the ruling by Justice Woo Bih Li in the Singapore High Court last week overturned an earlier decision by a lower court in a case that was filed by Lembaga Tabung Angkatan Tentera (LTAT) Malaysia.
According to the facts of the case, Ling Lee Soon, 71, is a retiree-cum-company director and is also said to be a director of two companies in Singapore with a registered address in Temasek Boulevard.
He is said to owe LTAT RM58 million but did not pay back the sum, according to the report. However, he was declared a bankrupt in Malaysia following the actions of another creditor.
LTAT then sought to recover the money in Singapore and pursuant to his failure to pay from his Singapore-based assets, LTAT’s lawyers from Morgan Lewis Stanford applied to have him declared bankrupt in Singapore in June. When that effort failed, an appeal was made and led to the judgment by the High Court last week, said the ST report.
According to the Singapore daily, Justice Woo had rejected Ling’s claim that LTAT’s real aim was to embarrass him with the Singapore court proceedings rather than recover a debt from him.
“Given that Ling had already been made bankrupt in Malaysia, LTAT would not ‘deliberately throw good money after bad just to embarrass him’”, Justice Woo said.
The judge also shot down another claim by Ling on his residence.
The retiree had claimed that his home was Kuala Lumpur, Kuching and Sibu and that he only came to Singapore on a long-term visit pass to meet relatives.
However, Justice Woo said such a claim was “untenable” because Ling had given a Singapore residential address to a Malaysian court in 2013, among other things.
Justice Woo said, with the ruling, an Official Assignee would be appointed to probe into Ling’s assets in Singapore and determine if it could be recovered to settle the debt with LTAT.
“In other words, the making of the bankruptcy order in Singapore was not an academic exercise,” Justice Woo was quoted as saying by the ST.
Ling’s lawyers said they would take the case to the Court of Appeal.