The case was delayed “for parties to file revised papers” following a pre-trial conference on Tuesday, The Straits Times reported, citing court records.
The 79-year-old tycoon had originally been set to plead guilty on July 3, but that hearing was replaced with the Tuesday pre-trial conference after a judiciary spokesperson said both parties requested more time to submit sentencing papers.
Pre-trial conferences typically focus on administrative matters, such as setting future court dates, and do not necessarily indicate that a case will go to trial, according to The Business Times.
Last October, Ong was charged with abetting a public servant in accepting gifts and abetting the obstruction of justice.
The charges relate to Ong covering the costs of former Transport Minister S. Iswaran’s trip from Singapore to Doha in 2022. The total covered cost was S$20,850 (US$16,200), according to Channel News Asia.
The expenses included flying Iswaran to Doha on Ong’s private jet, putting him up for a one-night stay at the Four Seasons Hotel Doha, and returning him to Singapore on a business-class flight.
Ong allegedly later told Iswaran that the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau had obtained the flight manifest for the December 2022 trip, and urged him to request an invoice for the flight to evade scrutiny. This led to Ong being charged with abetting the obstruction of justice.
Iswaran was sentenced to 12 months in prison in October 2024 after pleading guilty to five charges, including receiving gifts from Ong and David Lum Kok Seng, the managing director of Lum Chang Holdings.
In the mid-2000s, Ong, then managing director of Hotel Properties Limited, which owns the Four Seasons hotel in Singapore, worked with Iswaran to convince then–Formula One Group CEO Bernie Ecclestone to bring the sport’s first night race to the city-state. Ong stepped down as managing director of Hotel Properties in April.
Ong and his wife Christina were listed with a combined net worth of US$1.7 billion on Forbes’ billionaire list last year, but they were not included in the 2025 edition.
