Singapore Kitchen Equipment defends decision to keep CEO in role despite criminal charges

Responding to queries from the Singapore Exchange, SKE said in a Thursday filing that its nominating committee and board will review their assessment when there are material developments in the court case, including the conclusion of the Commercial Affairs Department’s prosecution, according to Singapore Business Review.

It was referring to CEO Chua Chwee Choo and senior manager Koh Sai Eng, who were charged earlier this month with falsifying over 100 payment vouchers.

Singapore Kitchen Equipment said the charges do not allege that the two women intended to make financial gains at the expense of third parties, facilitate any criminal breach of trust or fraudulent transactions with third parties, or cause financial loss to any party.

Chua Chwee Choo, CEO of Singapore Kitchen Equipment. Photo courtesy of the company

The company said its internal auditors had confirmed that all gaps had been addressed, while its statutory auditors had not detected any recurrence of control lapses since the financial year ended Dec. 31, 2021.

The charges against Chua and Koh arise from one transaction among eight that were previously identified in a fact-finding review. According to the company, the charges allege that former chief financial officer Chow Mei Ling, Chua and Koh conspired to mislead external auditor BDO. Chow faces similar charges.

The executives are accused of falsifying 102 payment vouchers to fraudulently show that a bonus payment of SGD741,700 was paid in January 2020, rather than the actual payment date of January 2019.

The Commercial Affairs Department’s investigation followed a review by a law firm concerning eight payments totaling SGD1.4 million, The Business Times reported.

Among the allegations, Chow is accused of willfully omitting the eight payments, including the bonuses, from a subsidiary’s accounts for financial years 2018 and 2019.

The company said that if either executive becomes unable to carry out her duties, current executive director Alan Lee will be appointed to take over as CEO, while the company will hire a qualified external executive to replace the senior manager. Lee and his wife, Chua, co-founded the company in 1996 with Frankie Cheng.