SINGAPORE Trends and Developments Contributed by: Sreenivasan Narayanan SC, Jason Lim and Palaniappan Sundararaj, Sreenivasan Chambers LLC
Asset Seizure Cases In August 2023, Singapore’s news headlines were dominated by what authorities described as the largest money laundering case in its history. A joint operation by the Singapore Police Force and other agencies led to the arrest of ten foreign nationals and the seizure of assets worth approximately SGD3 bil - lion. The scale of the haul was staggering. It included luxury properties, fleets of high-end vehicles including Rolls-Royces and Ferraris, crates of designer hand - bags, gold bars and vast sums held in bank accounts across multiple financial institutions. The case cast a new light on vulnerabilities to illicit capital flows and the importance of having a strong and robust asset recovery regime. The case also demonstrated the breadth of Singa - pore’s enforcement toolkit. Within days of the raids, the authorities had deployed a range of statutory pow - ers to freeze bank accounts, seize real property and restrain assets pending investigation. This section explores Singapore’s legal framework for asset seizure and recovery, with a focus on the practical recourse available to persons whose assets have been affected. In particular, we highlight three principal statutory mechanisms in which assets can be seized by the police: Section 35 of the Criminal Procedure Code 2010 (CPC), the Corruption, Drug Trafficking and Other Serious Crimes (Confiscation of Benefits) Act 1992 (CDSA) and the Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters Act 2000 (MACMA). Singapore’s broad policy stance against money laundering The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has described its anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism framework as a “critical pil - lar” of Singapore’s status as a trusted financial cen - tre. The framework is built on a combination of robust legislation, active supervision of financial institutions, and a willingness to take decisive enforcement action. The CPC, CDSA and MACMA are supplemented by various subsidiary legislation, MAS Notices (includ - ing MAS Notice 626 for banks and equivalent notices for other financial institutions) and guidelines. These impose stringent customer due diligence, suspicious
done between controlled accounts, thus affecting prices without any genuine change in beneficial ownership. • Mr Huang Yiwen, the sole director and shareholder of a company that provided market-making ser - vices, was convicted for his involvement in four conspiracies to rig the market or price of shares of listed companies. While market-making to provide liquidity in the market is allowed in Singapore, Mr Huang had gone further to create a false impres - sion as to the price of the shares, such as by “marking the close” (buying shares at the end of the day to improve the closing price). • Another interesting case would be that of Mr Kenneth Goh and Mr Oon Yun Cong. They were involved in a scheme where they made false state - ments in Telegram group chats to induce members of those chats to purchase shares which were held by them. These acts formed offences under a dif - ferent section – Section 200 (1)(a) of the SFA – for making false statements to induce others to trade. Practical guidance • Prosecutors routinely rely on trading data and expert evidence (including analysis of timing, vol - ume, price impact, dominant buyer/seller patterns, upticking, ramping and end-of-day bids), as well as contemporaneous communications such as WhatsApp messages, emails, call records and IP address access logs. • Directors and professionals who are not them - selves orchestrating any manipulative scheme are nevertheless at risk of being implicated through proximity. Participation in WhatsApp group chats or other informal communications discussing share price movements can, in certain circumstances, be sufficient to ground liability through conspiracy or connivance. Care should be taken to avoid any conduct that could be construed as participa - tion in, or encouragement of, co-ordinated trading activity. Where a director becomes aware of suspi - cious trading patterns or communications, they should immediately seek independent legal advice and take steps to distance themselves from the conduct in question.
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