SINGAPORE: A former independent director at water treatment firm Hyflux was on Thursday (Feb 12) denied his application to travel to Hong Kong before his ongoing trial resumes in April.
The judge noted the background of how 70-year-old Lee Joo Hai, a Malaysian and Singapore permanent resident, had to be arrested and extradited to Singapore after declining a request from the Commercial Affairs Department (CAD) to return to the country for investigations.
More importantly, Principal District Judge Toh Han Li said Lee, who is on bail, did not have a “compelling reason” to travel for what were essentially “social reasons” or a “holiday”.
Lee faces two charges under the Securities and Futures Act linked to Hyflux’s alleged omission of the electricity sales component of the Tuaspring Project in its offer information statement and an announcement on the Singapore Exchange.
He has been on trial for more than 40 days along with other former Hyflux independent directors, ex-chief executive officer Olivia Lum Ooi Lin and former chief financial officer Cho Wee Peng.
Hyflux suffered massive losses after a fall in electricity prices and entered liquidation in July 2021, with 34,000 investors holding perpetual securities and preference shares owed a total of S$900 million (US$714 million).
On Thursday afternoon, Lee’s lawyers Mr Daryl Fong and Mr Leong Kit Weng from Shook Lin & Bok applied for their client to fly to Hong Kong for a six-day trip on Feb 19, with a return date of Feb 24.
Mr Fong said Lee has very firm and stable roots in Singapore, with his immediate family members all living here.
His wife is a Singapore permanent resident, while Lee has properties in Singapore and bank accounts here.
Mr Fong said his client had been working in Singapore since 1982 until 2019, when he moved back to Penang, where he was originally from.
He said Lee moved back to Malaysia prior to any contact made with him by the Singapore Police Force’s CAD.
CAD reached out to Lee about the Hyflux charges only in April 2021, so it was not as if Lee moved to Malaysia to avoid investigations or charges, said Mr Fong.
He said the primary reason his client remained in Malaysia was because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Lee has also been in court for the trial and has never previously applied to leave Singapore, said Mr Fong, rejecting any suggestion that Lee was a flight risk.
After the judge sought clarifications, he said Lee currently lives in Singapore, but separately from his wife and son.
PROSECUTION OBJECTS
On behalf of a team of three prosecutors, Deputy Public Prosecutor Dhiraj G Chainani objected to the application, saying Lee was “a clear flight risk” who has “demonstrated a tendency to stay out of the jurisdiction”.
He also has no compelling reason to leave Singapore now, said Mr Chainani.
Although one of the former Hyflux independent directors had pleaded guilty and was sentenced to a fine, Lee’s exact level of culpability or otherwise has yet to be determined, he said.
“There is a real issue of the accused absconding if he is allowed to leave,” said Mr Chainani.
He said that all the co-accused in the Hyflux case were first charged in November 2022 except Lee, who was charged in March 2023.
From as early as April 2021, the CAD contacted Lee for assistance into investigations into Hyflux, repeatedly contacting him from that date, but Lee “consistently refused to return from Malaysia to Singapore”, said Mr Chainani.
“His response to the investigating officer was that he did not plan to return to Singapore in the foreseeable future,” said the prosecutor.
CAD eventually had to obtain a warrant of arrest, which was executed in Malaysia. He was arrested in Penang after a trip to Thailand in March 2023.
According to a statement he gave the Singapore police, Lee said his friends had told him not to return to Singapore and to stay away until the Hyflux investigations were over, said Mr Chainani.
“He explained that this was because his friends had purportedly told him that the Singapore government will not charge people unless they are 99 per cent confident of winning the case,” he said.
He quoted Lee as stating that: “So if I go back to Singapore, they will throw the book at me when I have not done anything wrong, so they told me to stay away until the court proceedings have settled.”
The prosecutor added that Lee was afraid that CAD would not allow him to travel out of Singapore if he returned, and deliberately evaded Singapore for nearly two years.
Not only has Lee demonstrated a “calculated evasion”, he also has financial means and international mobility, demonstrated by his ability to travel to other countries from Malaysia while avoiding Singapore, said Mr Chainani.
He said Lee had “prioritised personal freedom over legal obligations”, with his primary motivation to “avoid legal consequences”.
Although other ex-independent directors of Hyflux have been allowed to leave the country, the circumstances of Lee’s case are different, said Mr Chainani.
Lee’s stated purpose of travelling to visit a family friend whose daughter is purportedly recovering from cancer and to catch up with other friends also falls “well short” of the threshold required to grant such applications, said Mr Chainani.
Judge Toh said that while he was rejecting this application, this does not mean that all his future applications to travel will be rejected.
The Hyflux trial is set to resume in April.