Jul 31 court date set for MP Christopher de Souza’s professional disciplinary case

LAWYER and People’s Action Party MP Christopher de Souza will face the Court of Three Judges on Jul 31 in a hearing to decide the final outcome of professional disciplinary proceedings brought against him.

The court, which is the highest disciplinary body for the legal profession, has the power to disbar, suspend or fine a lawyer who is guilty of professional misconduct. The court can also clear a lawyer of such charges.

In 2022, de Souza, who is the Deputy Speaker of Parliament and an MP for Holland-Bukit Timah GRC, was found guilty of a misconduct charge by an independent disciplinary tribunal.

The two-member tribunal said de Souza had not made full and frank disclosure to the court when he was aware his client had breached an undertaking not to use documents seized in a search.

The tribunal said he helped his client in suppressing evidence by preparing and filing an affidavit that did not reveal the client had breached its undertaking.

The charge was one of five brought against him by the Law Society of Singapore in relation to his conduct while he was acting for Amber Compounding Pharmacy and Amber Laboratories; the four other charges were dismissed by the tribunal.

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His lawyers stated on Dec 6, 2022, that they would argue before the court that the one charge should also be dismissed.

Amber, which was initially represented by law firm Dodwell & Co, had sued a former employee and her company for allegedly stealing its trade secrets.

On Apr 13, 2018, Amber was granted a court order to carry out a search for documents, on condition that it give an undertaking not to use the seized documents without further order.

A total of 116,298 documents were seized on Apr 17, 2018.

Between Jul 31 and Oct 22, 2018, Amber breached its undertaking when it used 10 of the documents to file reports with the police, the Manpower Ministry and the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau against the defendants.

On Nov 28, 2018, Amber approached law firm Lee & Lee to act for it in relation to the criminal complaints it made.

De Souza, a partner at Lee & Lee, knew by Dec 5, 2018, that the documents had been used by Amber. He and his firm took over the civil suit on Dec 14 that year.

He advised Amber to apply for the court’s permission to use the documents.

On Jan 28, 2019, he helped a company representative file a supporting affidavit, which did not disclose that some documents had been used.

Amber’s application for permission to use the documents was eventually heard by the Court of Appeal, comprising chief justice Sundaresh Menon and justices Judith Prakash and Steven Chong.

On Sep 9, 2020, the court filed a complaint against de Souza to the Law Society. The complaint highlighted observations made by the court in its written judgment.

An inquiry committee convened on Jan 13, 2021, found de Souza had breached his paramount duty to the court, and recommended he be fined $2,000. The Law Society council, however, disagreed and applied to the chief justice for a disciplinary tribunal to be appointed to formally investigate the matter. The tribunal, comprising senior counsel N Sreenivasan and Pradeep Pillai, was appointed by the chief justice on Nov 19, 2021. Testimony was heard over five days in April 2022.

In its report, the tribunal accepted that de Souza had tried to persuade the client to make full disclosure. But it said the conduct of the client did not free the lawyer from blame for his own failure to make such disclosure.

The tribunal found there was cause of sufficient gravity for de Souza to face disciplinary sanction before the Court of Three Judges on one charge.

Justices Belinda Ang, Woo Bih Li and Kannan Ramesh will hear the case.

De Souza is represented by senior counsel Tan Chee Meng and Calvin Ong, while the Law Society is represented by Madan Assomull. THE STRAITS TIMES