AGC seeks 20 years’ jail for OK Lim, defence asks for 7 years for the 82-year-old
LIM Oon Kuin, the founder of liquidated oil trader Hin Leong Trading, could be staring at a jail term of 20 years for his three cheating and forgery charges, if the prosecution succeeds in persuading the court in what it described as one of the most serious trade financing fraud cases in Singapore.
The 82-year-old former billionaire – better known in the industry as OK Lim – has, however, asked for an imprisonment term of seven years through Senior Counsel Davinder Singh.
District judge Toh Han Li will sentence Lim on Nov 18.
Lim faced a total of 130 criminal charges of forgery and cheating, involving a collective sum of US$2.7 billion. Prosecution proceeded to trial on three of them.
Two charges against Lim pertained to cheating HSBC, and the third was for instigating a contracts executive of Hin Leong to forge a document for the ultimate purpose of cheating. The charges involved a total of US$111.7 million.
Lim was convicted of the three charges in May.
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On Tuesday, the prosecution sought a total of 20 years’ jail. That is the maximum of 10 years’ imprisonment prescribed by law for each of the cheating charge. For the forgery charge, a jail term of nine years was sought, but prosecution asked for it to run together with the two cheating charges.
On the contrary, Lim’s defence counsel contended that Lim should be handed seven years’ jail.
In seeking the imprisonment, Deputy Public Prosecutor Christopher Ong highlighted that Lim’s offences have tarnished Singapore’s reputation as a leading oil trading hub.
He also cited the amount of losses caused, which were among the highest in trade financing fraud in Singapore, with HSBC alone suffering US$85 million in unrecovered losses.
Lim had planned and orchestrated the offences, they were not impulsive actions that he took at the stroke of a pen, DPP Ong added.
However, Lim’s defence team led by Singh objected to prosecution’s submissions that Singapore’s reputation as an oil trading hub was dented.
He cited a statement jointly issued by three government agencies, including the Monetary Authority of Singapore in 2020, which stated that there was “no serious impact on oil trading and bunkering sectors” in the light of what happened at Hin Leong.
Singh argued that the prosecution has also not taken into account inflation in the past case of former Asia Pacific Breweries finance manager Chia Teck Leng when comparing the losses Lim caused.
Chia abused his position as finance manager to swindle four foreign banks out of S$117 million from 1999 to 2003. Chia was sentenced to a total of 42 years’ jail for 14 offences including eight cheating charges.
Singh contended that the offences of his client took place over just four days whereas the two cases prosecution cited – Chia and commodities trader Agritrade International’s former chief financial officer Lim Beng Kim, who defrauded more than a dozen banks and caused almost US$500 million in losses – occurred over three to four years.
Agritrade’s Lim was sentenced to 20 years’ jail over 12 offences including 11 cheating charges.
The accused in those cases were not handed the maximum prescribed imprisonment for the cheating charges, Singh noted.
OK Lim would be 95 years old when he is released if he qualifies for a one-third discount for a 20-year jail term for behaving well, and that is tantamount to a life sentence, Singh pointed out.
Lim and his children, Evan Lim and Lim Huey Ching, had a fortnight ago agreed in civil proceedings to pay US$3.5 billion to the court-appointed liquidators of the company and top creditor HSBC.
The Lims claimed that they did not want to take up any of the court’s time and resources in making the offer to consent to judgment without admitting liability.
