Hin Leong's OK Lim charged with 23 counts of forgery-related offences

CLAD in a khaki-coloured jacket, Singapore tycoon Lim Oon Kuin finally showed up at the State Courts on Friday, after three previous adjournments, and was charged by Singapore prosecutors with 23 counts of forgery-related offences.

He was charged with 12 counts under Section 468 for forgery for the purpose of cheating, and 11 counts under Section 465 of the Penal Code for forgery. The former carries a maximum jail term of 10 years and a fine. The latter carries a maximum jail term of four years or a fine, or both.

The 79-year-old former billionaire arrived at the court in a black Mercedes van, wearing a navy blue cap, and kept his head low as he was wheeled into court.

As the hearing started, Lim, better known as OK Lim, was seated outside the dock in the courtroom, accompanied by a middle-aged woman.

Soon after the District Judge Tan Jen Tse queried: "Is there some reason the accused shouldn't be in the dock?" He was then wheeled into the dock for the charges to be read to him.

Based on the charge sheets, Lim allegedly committed the offences between June 12, 2019 and March 9, 2020. The offences involve him instigating or conspiring with Freddy Tan Jie Ren, a contracts executive of Hin Leong Trading (HLT), in forgery. These included fraudulently making false "ITT certificates", or inter-tank transfer certificates, on the letterhead of UT Singapore Services. Collectively, these certificates purported that hundreds of thousands of metric tons of high sulphur fuel oil and gas oil had been transferred from HLT to China Aviation Oil (Singapore).

He also allegedly conspired with Mr Tan to forge a certificate of quality issued by Amspec Testing Services. The certificate falsely represented that samples of high sulphur fuel oil and gas oil had been collected at UT Singapore Services and tested by Amspec.

Singapore's Deputy Public Prosecutor Navin Naidu said the latest charges bring the total number of charges against Lim to 25. Last year, Singapore police charged Lim with two counts of abetment of forgery for the purpose of cheating.

Mr Naidu requested for six weeks for "further investigation to finalise the charges". The judge set June 24 for further mention of the case.

Lim's S$3 million court bail was extended on Friday.

Friday's hearing follows three consecutive adjournments since March 29, when prosecutors had intended to read the additional charges to Lim. Just the day before, on Thursday, Lim's defence lawyer Navin Thevar of Davinder Singh Chambers had asked the court for a two-week adjournment and provided a medical memo stating Lim was diagnosed with "acute and chronic sinusitis" and was therefore unfit to attend the hearing.

But Mr Naidu had asked for the hearing to be adjourned for merely a day, to Friday.

Mr Lim had led one of Singapore's largest and most prominent oil trading companies. As he was wheeled out of court, he declined to answer queries from reporters.

Pressure has mounted on Lim and his children - Evan Lim Chee Meng and Lim Huey Ching - as the sprawling Hin Leong empire he founded has crumbled under a pile of debt, following oil's historic price crash last March.

Last month, HLT - the group's flagship business and once, Asia's largest oil trader - was ordered to be wound up by the court. Its court-supervised managers from PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) had applied to liquidate the firm after a fruitless hunt for potential investors to buy the group's assets as a whole.

HLT's judicial-managers (JMs) turned liquidators are also suing the Lim family for US$3.5 billion, alleging that they breached their fiduciary duties as directors and engaged in fraudulent trading.

In early April, however, the JMs' bid to freeze the Lim family's assets worldwide suffered a setback after the Singapore High Court reserved judgment on their Mareva injunction application.