Sakae Holdings ex-director who misappropriated $15.8 million gets over 10 years’ jail

AI generated

SINGAPORE - Former Sakae Holdings director Andy Ong Siew Kwee, 56, who misappropriated $15.8 million, was sentenced to 10½ years in jail on Aug 7.

Sakae Holdings is a Singapore-based food and beverage company that runs the Sakae Sushi chain.

After a trial, Ong was convicted in May of one count each of criminal breach of trust, abetting forgery and intentionally giving false evidence in the High Court.

The High Court suit against him and other parties was brought by Sakae Holdings, a member of a joint venture entity called Griffin Real Estate Investment Holdings (GREIH).

Following the same trial, two other men - Chua Wei Tat, 41, and Ho Yew Kong, 56 - were each convicted of one count of intentionally giving false evidence linked to the suit.

They were each sentenced to a year in jail on Aug 7.

Chua was an asset manager employed by Gryphon Capital Management while Ho had held several positions including as director at GREIH from January 2011 to March 2015.

In earlier proceedings, the court heard that Ong was a majority shareholder, a director and the founder of a company called ERC Holdings (ERCH).

Through ERCH, he held stakes in a number of other organisations, including ERC Institute, ERC International, and ERC Unicampus.

In addition, he was a director at investment holding company Gryphon Real Estate Investment Corporation (GREIC), in which he was a minority shareholder.

Court documents stated that in 2009, he approached his long-time acquaintance, Douglas Foo, to co-invest in a joint venture and acquire the majority of the units of a commercial building in North Bridge Road, known alternatively as North Bridge Commercial Complex (NBCC) or Bugis Cube.

The prosecution said Foo was then the managing director of Apex-Pal International, which later became known as Sakae Holdings.

The prosecution said before the misappropriation, Ong abetted one of his associates, Ong Han Boon, to falsify a document purporting to be a lease agreement made between GREIH and ERC Institute.

Ong Han Boon was dealt with in court earlier.

During the trial, he testified that on or around June 20, 2012, Andy Ong instructed him to prepare a contract, purporting that GREIH and ERC Institute had agreed that GREIH would lease levels three to six of NBCC to ERC Institute.

According to Ong Han Boon, Andy Ong also instructed him that the contract was to be backdated to around the date of the ERC Institute careers fair in March 2012.

Deputy public prosecutors Suhas Malhotra, Yee Jia Rong and Ronnie Ang stated in their submissions that Ong Han Boon, in turn, instructed Chua to prepare a lease agreement between GREIH and ERC Institute, and backdate it to March 2012.

They added that a false document, referred to as V5 in court papers, was then created after June 2012 but was backdated to March 1 that year.

The DPPs said: “(Andy Ong, Ong Han Boon, Ho and Chua) intended to deceive anyone reading V5 into believing that it was created (in March).

“They intended to make it look like ERC Institute was entitled to compensation from GREIH, because GREIH terminated the lease agreement contained in V5.”

The prosecution said that on or around Sept 13, 2012, $15.8 million was transferred out to two other companies in which Andy Ong had held stakes - ERC International and ERC Unicampus.

The DPPs told the court the four men created a paper trail comprising false and backdated documents to make it look like GREIH prematurely terminated a lease it had granted to ERC Institute.

The prosecutors added that Andy Ong then misappropriated $15.8 million from GREIH claiming it was “compensation” owed by GREIH to ERC Institute.

They said: “When they were sued by GREIH’s minority shareholder, (the four men) closed ranks, by giving mutually corroborating false evidence (linked to) the lease.”

On Aug 7, the court heard that Andy Ong, Ho and Chua will be appealing against their convictions and sentences.