High Court dismisses SBI Offshore ex-CEO's claims against PwC

A FORMER SBI Offshore executive who alleged that PricewaterhouseCoopers Advisory Services (PwC) had caused him reputational loss in its special audit of transactions he was involved with has had his claims dismissed.

David Tan Woo Thian, a former chief executive officer (CEO) of SBI Offshore until 2016, had his claims dismissed by a High Court judge last Wednesday, according to the minute sheet seen by The Business Times.

In July 2016, SBI engaged PwC to review a series of transactions pertaining to SBI's acquisition and subsequent disposal of shares in Jiangyin Neptune Marine Appliance (NPT), a Chinese entity.

PwC found that two sets of NPT acquisition agreements and disposal agreements existed, with conflicting sale and purchase prices.

Mr Tan, together with another former CEO Jonathan Hui Choon Ho, had allegedly signed both sets of agreements on the company's behalf. PwC's findings were summarised in a report dated Sept 6, 2016 that was issued to SBI's board and shareholders.

Mr Tan alleged that PwC acted negligently in investigating the transactions and in presenting its findings in the report, causing him to lose influence in SBI.

Justice See Kee Oon dismissed the claims, saying that PwC's report drew fair and defensible conclusions. "The report correctly surfaced the discrepancies and inconsistencies in the acquisition and disposal documentation relating to the NPT transactions, and correctly drew attention to the possibility of breaches of Chinese tax laws and Singapore securities law."

Mr Tan's assertions were unsupported and entirely speculative, the judge added. "The plaintiff's real grievance appears to be personal. The present action appears to be driven by his dissatisfaction over many things. Among these are the defendant's perceived prejudice against him and its ostensible failure to hold John Chan to account in spite of the allegations raised by Jonathan Hui via email. This constitutes part of the plaintiff's 'conspiracy' theory that the defendant sought to ensure that John Chan was absolved of blame and had set out to 'fix' the plaintiff instead. I am unable to see any proper basis for this theory. In any event, it is not part of the plaintiff's pleaded case."

John Chan Lai Thong was another former CEO of SBI Offshore who left in August 2017.

Mr Tan was represented by Vijay & Co, while PwC was represented by Rajah & Tann. The court will hear the parties' submissions on costs later this month.