Lim Oon Kuin, popularly known as OK Lim, received a 17-year-and-six-month prison sentence last November after being convicted on two counts of cheating and one of abetting forgery, The Business Times reported, citing the judgment delivered by Principal District Judge Toh Han Li at the time.
The court found Lim guilty of cheating HSBC through staff of his oil trading firm, Hin Leong, by claiming the company had entered into two oil sale contracts with China Aviation Oil (Singapore) and Unipec Singapore. These fictitious contracts were then used to apply for discounting from HSBC, which then disbursed US$111.7 million to Hin Leong, of which $85 million remains the bank’s unrecovered loss.
Lim’s defense lawyer, Senior Counsel Davinder Singh, argued that the district judge had erred in several areas in convicting Lim.
Singh contended that there was no evidence showing Lim had directed staff to submit fraudulent discounting applications to HSBC to persuade it to disburse funds to Hin Leong.
The lawyer pointed out that Katherine Ong, a former senior accounts executive in Hin Leong’s treasury department who had been called to testify that Lim had given the instruction to prepare the false documents, said she was unable to remember whether she received instructions from Lim or his former personal assistant, Serene Seng.
 |
Hin Leong founder Lim Oon Kuin arrives for sentencing at the State Courts in Singapore, Nov. 18, 2024. Photo by Reuters |
There was also no evidence of the “delivery” of the funds mentioned in the charges, he argued.
“The money wasn’t delivered to anyone. The bank paid itself from the monies it agreed to discount,” Singh explained, as quoted by The Straits Times.
“This account was in an overdraft. At the time the monies came in, Hin Leong owed HSBC amounts which the credited monies wiped out. (…) There’s no evidence of Hin Leong taking delivery of the monies and benefiting from it.”
High Court Justice Hoo Sheau Peng, who heard the appeal, adjourned the case to Nov. 14 for arguments on Lim’s sentence.
Determining who had instructed Hin Leong staff to create the documentation tied to the fabricated deals was central to Lim’s criminal trial, which started in April 2023 and resulted in his sentencing in November 2024, according to Channel News Asia.
Principal District Judge Toh’s judgment found Lim to be the one who had ordered his staff to forge the documents.
During the trial, Lim’s defense had sought a lighter sentence of seven years as a 20-year jail term would effectively amount to a life sentence given his age.
Following the sentencing, Singh said Lim would appeal against the sentence. The case has been described as one of Singapore’s most serious trade financing frauds.
Founded in 1973, Hin Leong was owned by Lim and his two children, Evan Lim and Lim Huey Ching.
The trio was declared bankrupt last December after reaching a settlement in two lawsuits filed by Hin Leong’s liquidators and HSBC against the Lim family. Their bankruptcy estates are currently handled by trustees Leow Quek Shiong and Seah Roh Lin of BDO Singapore.
Senior Counsel Singh is regarded as Singapore’s top litigator, having represented Singapore’s former prime ministers, Lee Kuan Yew and Lee Hsien Loong, in multiple civil cases.
