THE High Court has ordered Deng Yiming to pay Asian Eco Technology S$483,000 in damages over missing diamond seeds and loose diamonds, said Metech International in a Tuesday (Oct 17) bourse filing.

Interests will also be accrued at 5.33 per cent per annum from Mar 13, which is the day Metech filed a lawsuit against Deng over those missing diamonds.

He is one of the former directors of Asian Eco Technology, a joint venture (JV) to manufacture and distribute lab-grown diamonds between Metech’s subsidiary Asian Green Tech and X Diamond Capital (XDC), which is owned by Deng.

The High Court’s assessment of the amount of damages comes after Deng was also ordered to pay Asian Eco Technology S$34,000 in costs in August this year.

In filing its lawsuit, Metech had previously said that the missing pieces were last in Deng’s possession, and he had not satisfactorily addressed issues relating to them.

Metech filed a second lawsuit against Deng soon after, stating that it has reason to believe XDC sold five machines used for growing diamonds – known as microwave plasma chemical vapour deposition machines – to Asian Eco Technology at a price higher than their fair-market value on Oct 19, 2021.

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Metech fully assumed control of Asian Eco Technology since Jan 17 this year, after Asian Green Tech terminated the JV agreement on grounds that XDC had breached its terms.

Shares of Metech closed flat at S$0.03 on Tuesday.