Investments gone bad

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The bank cajoled and pressured Janet Tay into investing in accumulators, a.k.a. I-Kill-You-Later.

Retiree sues Credit Suisse over $1.6 million in investment losses​

Madam Janet Tay said the bank's relationship manager had under-reported the amount of shortfall in her account, resulting in a delay in selling her shares to cover the gap. ST PHOTO: MARK CHEONG

Joyce Lim
Senior Correspondent

Feb 7, 2022

SINGAPORE - A 68-year-old retiree is suing Swiss bank Credit Suisse in Singapore for US$1.2 million (S$1.6 million) over trading losses when the share market tanked in 2020.
Madam Janet Tay said the bank's relationship manager had under-reported the amount of shortfall in her account, which resulted in a delay in selling her shares to cover the gap. By then, the price had fallen further.
She is also accusing the relationship manager of pushing her to invest in other products amid the volatility of the market. As a result, the investment greatly reduced the loan-to-value ratio to support her portfolio of US$4 million.
Had that not been the case, Madam Tay said in her statement of claim that she would have held on to some of her shares and "been able to sell them at optimum or favourable prices".
The lawsuit, which commenced last year (2021), centres on the role and duty of care expected of the bank's relationship manager.
Madam Tay said a reasonable and competent bank like Credit Suisse and its relationship manager owed her a duty of care in providing its services and carrying out its various duties and obligations in relation to her trading account.
Prior to her retirement, Madam Tay, who has a first-class honours in accountancy from University of Singapore and a master's in business administration with distinction from London Business School, used to run a management consultancy firm.

Madam Tay, who is represented by Mr Philip Ling and Ms Eunice Wong from Wong Tan & Molly Lim LLC, said in her statement of claim filed last August that she had known Ms Tania Chew, an employee of Credit Suisse's Singapore branch, since 2004.
Then, the latter was working at DBS Bank and was assigned as the relationship manager to handle her DBS Treasures account.
Madam Tay said she moved her investment portfolio to Credit Suisse on two occasions when approached by Ms Chew.


Subsequent to the opening of a trading account in 2018, Madam Tay had been giving instructions to Ms Chew to carry out various trades and transactions.
She said Ms Chew was well aware that she does not have or use any online banking services under the account, and Ms Chew had taken it upon herself and "assumed the duty and responsibility, to inform, advise and update" her on the status of her account.
Madam Tay said she relied on Ms Chew to inform her of any shortfall under the account and advise her on the actions to rectify it.
In her statement, Madam Tay said Ms Chew informed her of a US$200,000 shortfall on the morning of March 9, 2020. But it was only around 4.50pm that Ms Chew advised her to sell her Credit Suisse shares to reduce the inadequacy.


A shortfall refers to any financial obligation or liability that is greater than the cash on hand required to satisfy that obligation.
However, due to the falling US market, Madam Tay managed to sell only 8,000 shares, which lowered the shortfall by about US$28,000.
The following day (March 10), she was told that her shortfall stood at US$300,000, when it was in fact about US$673,000.
Due to the alleged misrepresentations by Ms Chew, Madam Tay said she was unable to clear the actual amount of shortfall and ended up selling her shares later when the market crashed further.
Prior to the incident, Madam Tay claimed that while she was on vacation in Australia around Feb 20, Ms Chew sent her messages on WhatsApp where she "repeatedly and persistently cajoled and pressured" her to purchase US dollar to Swiss franc FX accumulator products, which drastically reduced her loan-to-value ratio.
A loan-to-value ratio is a percentage measurement of the amount that can be borrowed against a share or a managed fund, using a margin loan.
As a result of the purchase on Feb 21, Madam Tay suffered losses amounting to US$634,275.
In court documents filed, she said the losses being claimed in the proceedings were sums she had earmarked for a charity which she started in 2010, in honour of her late mother Koh Seng Neo, to help underprivileged students from Raffles Institution who display academic potential.
Madam Tay added that she had placed great faith and trust in Ms Chew to advise and act in her best interests at all times, given that Ms Chew is the bank's relationship manager and their longstanding relationship of more than 16 years.


When contacted, Credit Suisse declined to comment as legal proceedings are ongoing.
In its defence filed, the bank denies any duty of care owed to Madam Tay.
Credit Suisse, which is represented by lawyers from Allen & Gledhill, said its relationship with her was governed by the terms of the contractual documents she had signed with the bank.
Credit Suisse said her account is a non-discretionary one, whereby it provided execution services and she was responsible for her own investment decisions.
Madam Tay was also responsible for managing and monitoring the portfolio and/or investments in her account.
No trial dates have been fixed yet.

 

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Chiobu in trouble

 

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"He alleged that in 2007, the bank unilaterally increased his risk tolerance to "high" and introduced riskier investments to him in the form of high-risk structured products known as accumulators, which have been dubbed "I kill you later"."

Retired stockbroker sues Credit Suisse over US$26m investment losses in 2008​

Mr Koh Kim Teck, 63, alleges that the bank had wrongly advised him to invest in high-risk structured products that were unsuitable for his objectives of wealth preservation. PHOTO: REUTERS

Selina Lum
Law Correspondent


AUG 29, 2017,

SINGAPORE - A retired stockbroker from Malaysia who lost US$26 million (S$35.1 million) in investments with Credit Suisse during the 2008 financial crisis is suing the Singapore branch of the Swiss bank for breaching its duties to manage his private wealth account with care.
Mr Koh Kim Teck, 63, alleges that the bank had wrongly advised him to invest in high-risk structured products that were unsuitable for his objectives of wealth preservation. He claims that the bank had failed to monitor and keep him informed of the risk exposure of the account.
He also alleges that it was unreasonable for the bank to give him only four hours' notice to top up an additional US$5.7 million in collateral before closing out his account, which resulted in the losses.
On Tuesday, the first day of a three-week trial, his lawyers, Senior Counsel Sarjit Singh Gill and Mr Edmund Eng, portrayed him as a man of substantial wealth who was relentlessly courted by bank employees pushing high-risk products.
"In its single-minded pursuit of extraordinary profits, the defendant simply closed its eyes to the duties they owed to the plaintiffs," said Mr Koh's lawyers in their opening statement.
The lawyers said Credit Suisse had promised Mr Koh "the heavens and the stars" when trying to get him to open a private wealth account with the bank. But "when the music stopped", the bank closed out his account with a "farcical" four hours' notice, wiping out his nest egg.
Credit Suisse, represented by Senior Counsel Alvin Yeo and Ms Lim Wei Lee, contended that the losses were a consequence of Mr Koh's own investment decisions and the global financial crisis, not through any fault of the bank.

​

The bank disputed Mr Koh's attempt to portray himself as having been led astray by its employees. It said Mr Koh, who retired as the general manager of a prominent stockbroking company listed in Malaysia, was a sophisticated and savvy investor.
Credit Suisse contends that Mr Koh was actively managing the investments in the account, apart from a period between 2004 and 2005 when he was busy defending a criminal charge of murdering his teenage nephew in Malaysia. Mr Koh was eventually acquitted at trial.
Both sides have diametrically opposite accounts of what led to the opening of the account in 2003.
Mr Koh's version is that a bank employee pursued him to open the account and he relented after she promised that the bank would set up an offshore company through which he can hold the account. She also assured him that the bank would monitor the account and advise him on his investments, said Mr Koh.
He alleged that in 2007, the bank unilaterally increased his risk tolerance to "high" and introduced riskier investments to him in the form of high-risk structured products known as accumulators, which have been dubbed "I kill you later".
However, Credit Suisse contended that it was Mr Koh who wanted to open an account with the bank using an offshore investment vehicle for confidentiality. He had also expressed interest in high-yield investment products to enhance his returns, said the bank.
The bank said Mr Koh did not object to the close-out of his account and had instead thanked the team for their hard work. Five years later, in 2013, he sued the bank. His investment vehicle, Smiling Sun Limited, also filed suit against the bank.

 

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Retiree sues UOB over $1.15m in investment losses​

Under dispute is whether she was tricked into bad investment or was a competent investor​

A 72-year-old retiree is suing United Overseas Bank (UOB) and a former relationship manager at the bank after suffering losses totalling $1.15 million. PHOTO: ST FILE

Joyce Lim
Senior Correspondent


AUG 18, 2020

A 72-year-old retiree is suing United Overseas Bank (UOB) and a former relationship manager at the bank after suffering losses totalling $1.15 million.
Madam Tan Swan Choo said she was deceived by Mr Keigo Lam Yew Kai into believing she had put her money into investment vehicles sanctioned by UOB, when they were in fact unsecured loans to Broadwell, a company incorporated in the British Virgin Islands.
At the heart of the case is a dispute over whether Madam Tan was a naive retiree who was tricked into making unwise investments, or whether she was an experienced investor who knew exactly what she was getting into.
Mr Lam, 36, was assistant vice-president of UOB's Privilege Banking team when he first met Madam Tan some time in January 2018.
They were introduced by Madam Tan's son Jonathan Kang at a buffet lunch meeting, at which Madam Tan's other son, Jason, was also present.
Both parties agree on this but their accounts about what transpired then and at several other lunch meetings over the next year or so differ widely.
Madam Tan, who is represented by Chia Wong Chambers, said in her statement of claim filed last month that Mr Lam introduced an investment opportunity to her when her sons stepped away to replenish their food.

She said she asked him if the vehicle was "safe and secure", as she had little in her Central Provident Fund account and the monies in her UOB bank account were her retirement savings. She said she stressed to him that she prioritised security above interest rates.
In her statement, Madam Tan said Mr Lam assured her the investment was "safe and secure". She said she believed he was advising her in his capacity as an employee of UOB since he had given her his name card. Because of that, she thought the investment was authorised or endorsed by UOB, and proceeded to invest a sum of $600,000 soon afterwards.
For the next year, she received monthly interest and when her "investment" matured a year later, she said Mr Lam advised her to renew it. Madam Tan said she transferred $500,000 for this second investment. Shortly after, she said Mr Lam advised her to make another investment, and she agreed to put in $650,000 this time.

However, the promised interest payments of 5.4 per cent and 5.1 per cent per annum on the investments soon stopped. Madam Tan said her son Jason then tried to arrange a meeting with Mr Lam, who stopped responding.

In December last year, her son Jonathan informed UOB of what had transpired.
In January this year, Madam Tan said she met Mr Jeffrey Beh, executive director of UOB's legal department, at UOB Privilege Banking Centre. She said he told her the investments had nothing to do with the bank but were instead unsecured loans to a company incorporated in the British Virgin Islands known as Broadwell.
Madam Tan said Mr Beh also told her that there were other UOB clients who were victims and that Mr Lam had since been fired.
Mr Lam, who is represented by Providence Law Asia LLC, denied any duty of care to Madam Tan.
In his defence filed two weeks ago, he denied having represented himself to Madam Tan in his capacity as an employee of UOB or told her that the loan agreements with Broadwell were endorsed by UOB.
He said Madam Tan was an experienced investor who owned and operated hotel properties in Australia. At their first meeting, she and Jason had expressed interest in "private placement" investments with no upfront charges and which paid out interest.
In response to her interest, Mr Lam said he told her about a promissory note that was being issued for funding a Catalist-listed company known as Epicentre Holdings. He said she and her sons were fully aware that the three agreements they signed were non-bank products and were loans to Broadwell.
Mr Lam said on July 17 last year, he received a text message from Jason, asking if there were supposed to be any deposits in respect of the two investments for May and June.
Mr Lam said he told Jason that the chief executive of Epicentre, Mr Kenneth Lim, had gone missing, and had very likely embezzled the funds. He said he then spoke to Madam Tan regarding this and that she said she should not have been so "greedy". Mr Lam said he had not been fired from the bank but had resigned.
In its defence filed on July 24, UOB disputed Madam Tan's claims that the bank was responsible for her investment losses. UOB, represented by Shook Lin & Bok LLP, said the mere furnishing of Mr Lam's UOB name card by Mr Lam to Madam Tan at a social gathering did not amount to a representation that Mr Lam was advising Madam Tan in his capacity as the bank's employee.
UOB said it was not reasonable for Madam Tan to have the impression that the investment recommended by Mr Lam had any connection to UOB, as the contracts with Broadwell made no mention of the bank and did not bear UOB's logo.
It said it was clear the product had nothing to do with the bank since the interest was not credited directly into Madam Tan's bank account, but was deposited into it by way of cheques not issued by UOB.
UOB also denied having said there were other victims or that Mr Lam had been sacked. Mr Lam, who joined UOB in 2011, resigned from his position on Feb 11 last year.
It said Mr Lam was neither Madam Tan's consultant nor was he assigned by UOB to be her relationship manager. Madam Tan was a mass market customer of UOB, the bank said.

 

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Singapore tycoon sues Citi over $684 mln losses-paper​

By Reuters Staff


SINGAPORE, May 19 (Reuters) - Singapore-based businessman Oei Hong Leong has sued Citigroup's C.N private bank for negligence and misrepresentation after he lost S$1 billion ($684 million) on foreign exchange and bond trades last year, the Straits Times reported on Tuesday.
Oei’s lawsuit said Citi, with which he has a 30-year relationship, repeatedly gave him an inaccurate picture of his trading exposure, which led him to take on more positions than he would have taken otherwise, the newspaper said, citing court documents. It said Oei declined to comment about the court case.
A spokesman from Citi told Reuters in an email: “We believe that the claim is without merit and we fully intend to defend our position vigorously.” It declined to comment further on the matter.
There was no immediate comment available from Oei’s office.
Oei was ranked Singapore’s 29th richest person by Forbes last year with a net worth of $210 million. Forbes calculated Oei’s wealth based on his stakes in publicly traded companies and in private company filings.
According to Straits Times, Oei claimed he felt compelled to close his positions at an extremely volatile time in October last year, taking huge losses, as he felt he had no choice after discovering the full extent of his exposure.
Some angry Asian private banking clients have filed lawsuits after losing money on complex financial products battered in a global market meltdown last year, forcing the industry into damage control. ($1=1.463 Singapore Dollar) (Reporting by Saeed Azhar; Editing by Anshuman Daga

 

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Accumulators (I Kill You Later) again!

Citigroup settles lawsuit with Singapore client Oei​

The Editor
TheEdge

October 02, 2009


Citigroup Inc. reached a settlement with Oei Hong Leong, a Singapore businessman who sued the bank over trading losses of more than $1 billion.

Oei will discontinue the action, Jack Sung, a spokesman for Citi Private Bank in Singapore, said in an e-mailed statement late yesterday. The terms of the settlement, which was confirmed by Oei’s lawyer Quek Mong Hua in an e-mail, are confidential, Sung said.

Oei, ranked one of Singapore’s 40 richest people by Forbes magazine last year, sued Citigroup in May, alleging he incurred the losses after the bank provided him with conflicting reports of his margin surplus in October last year, forcing him to unwind his trades at “an adverse time.”

“The products in dispute in this case were not very complex so it would not be surprising to see the claimant settle this very early, despite the original sum claimed being large,” said Martin Rogers, head of litigation and dispute resolution for Clifford Chance LLP in Asia.

Rogers, who has acted for Citigroup in similar cases, said he didn’t think the settlement sets a bad precedent for the New York-based bank.

Oei told Singapore’s Straits Times newspaper in May that he lost about $1 billion, which he had paid up in full. He had claimed Citigroup failed to carry out US$600 million in orders for U.S. Treasury 30-year bonds in November to cover uncovered call options he had written. Call options give the buyers the right to buy securities at a pre-agreed price on or before a specified date.

‘RISKS UNDERSTOOD’
Citigroup said in a June court filing that the Singapore private banking client understood the “considerable risks” of his investments and that it hadn’t provided misleading or inaccurate information.

Other Asian bank clients have sued for investment losses. In July, a Hong Kong citizen sued UBS AG, alleging negligence and reckless misinterpretation in inducing her to buy so-called accumulators that resulted in losses of more than HK$200 million ($36.5 million).

Also in July, 204 investors in Singapore sued DBS Group Holdings over $17 million in losses on securities linked to the collapsed Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.

The Monetary Authority of Singapore banned DBS and nine other financial institutions that sold products linked to Lehman from selling structured notes for a minimum of six months to two years.

Hong Kong banks in July agreed to pay about HK$6.3 billion in compensation to investors who lost money on notes linked to Lehman, ending a 10-month dispute.
The case is Oei Hong Leong and Citibank N.A., S424/2009/T in the Singapore High Court.

 

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Singapore tycoon Oei sues Goldman Sachs for currency losses​

By Laura Philomin, Saeed Azhar
Sep 26, 2013

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Goldman Sachs has been sued by a Singapore businessman for allegedly giving misleading advice that cost him 3.18 billion yen ($32.22 million) in losses on currency options, according to court documents seen by Reuters.
Oei Hong Leong, ranked 32nd on Singapore’s rich list by Forbes with a net worth of $745 million, wants Goldman to compensate him for the losses as well as pay him interest and costs. Oei also wants the court to award him damages.
Goldman has rejected Oei’s claim, with a spokeswoman in Hong Kong saying, “We believe the lawsuit is without merit and we intend to vigorously contest it.”
Oei said in a statement of claim that he had on May 15 made two bets that the Brazilian currency will appreciate against the yen on the advice of a Hong Kong-based Goldman banker.
Oei, who had been betting that the U.S. dollar will rise against the Japanese currency, claimed that the Goldman banker, Mats Dewitte, had told him the real was anchored to the dollar and that by switching from the greenback, he would also benefit from higher interest rates earned on the Brazilian unit.
“Many clients are turning to EMFX/Yen plays instead of USDJPY to earn greater carry/yield ... BRL vs USD volatility is low because the central bank is anchoring BRL to USD,” Oei quoted Dewitte as saying in an email that the businessman reproduced in a claim dated September 20.
EMFX refers to emerging markets foreign exchange, while BRL and USD are the codes for the Brazilian and U.S. currencies.
But since Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke raised the prospect of ratcheting down the Fed’s economic stimulus in late May, the Brazilian real has been one of the biggest losers among emerging market currencies.
Dewitte and the law firm representing Oei declined to comment.
Oei had in 2009 sued Citigroup’s private banking arm for alleged negligence and misrepresentation after he made an estimated loss of S$1 billion ($798 million) on foreign exchange and U.S. Treasury bond transactions in 2008. That case was subsequently settled out of court.

 

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Singapore investor sues Goldman Sachs over trading loss​

Published December 5, 2013


SINGAPORE – Goldman Sachs Group was sued by Singaporean wealth-management client Oei Hong Leong over a US$34.3 million (S$43 million) loss on Brazilian real-yen options trades he claimed the bank misled him into making, the Bloomberg news agency reported.
Mr Oei accused the New York-based bank of fraudulent misrepresentation, breach of fiduciary duty, fraudulent inducement and unjust enrichment in papers filed on Wednesday in New York state court.
Goldman Sachs rejected allegations that it acted improperly or cheated him, according to a letter it wrote to Mr Oei in July and filed in a Singapore court, where the businessman is suing a unit of the bank over the same loss. The bank has said it will defend that lawsuit, which it is seeking to halt in favour of private and confidential arbitration.
“A lot of clients are like me, they trust the big banks like they trust their doctors,” Mr Oei, 65, said in a Bloomberg interview on Thursday. His friends have had similar experiences and he is suing for “justice and fairness” for all clients, he said.
Ms Andrea Raphael, a spokeswoman for Goldman Sachs in New York, said Mr Oei’s lawsuit is without merit and will be defended.
Mr Oei said in the New York lawsuit that he cut dealings with Goldman Sachs in 2011 after it profited on a losing trade it persuaded him to make. He said he resumed transactions after senior executives including President Gary Cohn and Asia head David Ryan visited him in April 2012 and said his interests would be placed first.
Mr Oei said he relied on claims by Mr Mats Dewitte, Goldman Sachs’s executive director for fixed income, currencies and commodities in Asia, before betting on May 15 the Japanese currency would fall against the real.
The bank had claimed the real was a stable and liquid currency anchored to the US dollar, he said.
The real has fallen 12 per cent since May 1 against the yen, the worst performer among 16 major currencies tracked by Bloomberg. The Brazilian currency dropped to a four-year low in June after the US Federal Reserve said it may moderate bond purchases that have fuelled demand for emerging-market assets.
Mr Oei in 2009 settled a claim against Citigroup over S$1 billion in trading losses

 

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Investor in S'pore sues vendor, wins suit to recover $1.3m loss​

The man had invested $1.5 million in a fund that was assured to be "capital-guaranteed". PHOTO ILLUSTRATION: UNSPLASH

Tan Ooi Boon
Invest Editor

NOV 14, 2021

SINGAPORE - The term "capital-guaranteed" gives investors peace of mind because even if calamity strikes, they will at least escape with their initial investment. What could go wrong?
A case winding its way through Singapore's courts suggests that plenty could go wrong unless all parties are literally on the same page when it comes to signing documents.
The man at the centre of the case, Chinese national Lou Kan, invested $1.5 million in a fund that was assured to be "capital-guaranteed", which meant his money would be safe even if the global economy did badly.
But when he wanted to cash out five years later, he was shocked to discover that he could only get back barely 15 per cent of the initial capital, or about $225,000, because his investment was not as risk-free as he had been told.
The fund's vendor who sold him the product had apparently misled him into thinking that this was a safe investment. The investor also signed on documents which stated that he was buying into a capital-guaranteed fund.
When the investor discovered that he would not be getting his money back, he sued the vendor, a senior executive at the fund's manager, in the High Court. He won the case last month with the judge ruling that Mr Lou had clearly acted on the seller's false representations.
The ruling ordered the vendor to reimburse the remaining $1.275 million to the investor.

But the man lodged an appeal over this decision with the case pending before the Court of Appeal.
This is an unusual case because the investor sued the person who sold him the product and not the investment company itself.
Victims of financial losses usually have little recourse against those who sell the products because most sellers are either freelance agents or employees who don't have the means to make good the losses, even when they are found guilty of fraudulent behaviour.

While the facts of this case are unique, the High Court's ruling should serve as a caution to those financial representatives who have the bad habit of making exaggerated and sometimes untrue claims about the investment products they peddle.
Advisers who do this just to pocket a quick buck on commission should be aware that their customers can always sue them and make them pay for losses if they have misled them into parting with their money.

Is the $1.5 million guaranteed?​

Events that led to this lawsuit began in 2012 when Mr Lou applied for permanent residency here under the Singapore global investment programme (GIP), which then required foreign applicants to make a $1.5 million investment in approved funds.
While still in Beijing, Mr Lou engaged Mr Xing Xinli to help in the immigration process, which included a referral to the GIP-approved "Sunmax Global Capital Fund 1".
With Mr Xing's help, Mr Lou later met Mr Li Hua, the managing director of the fund's manager. Mr Lou said he was given the fund's "private placement memorandum" (PPM) dated Feb 1, 2009, which stated that the fund was principal-guaranteed but relevant management fees would be chargeable.
To show what this meant, one of its terms stated: "For example, if you invest $1,500,000 in our fund, you will get at least of (sic) $1,237,500 back just after 5 years."
While there were different versions on how the investment was eventually placed, what was undisputed was that both Mr Lou and Mr Li had signed on these "2009 PPM".
In 2017, Mr Lou cashed out his investment and asked for his $1.5 million sum plus returns, after paying the management fees.
But the investment company told him that according to its "2010 PPM", this fund was not principal-guaranteed.
And in his case, he would get back about $225,000, "with the possibility of further distributions after liquidation of the fund's non-cash assets".
Mr Lou said this was not what Mr Li had told him and neither did he have any knowledge of the 2010 documents. He pointed out that both of them had signed the 2009 documents, which stated that his investment was guaranteed.

In the following year, he sued Mr Li as there had been no resolution to the dispute.
Mr Li claimed that he never gave the 2009 forms to Mr Lou, noting that the forms were already on the table when he arrived at the meeting, which was arranged by Mr Xing.
He claimed he brought the newer forms because the 2009 version was no longer in use.
Mr Li also said he never made any representations that the investment was capital-guaranteed and that if anyone who said so, it was probably Mr Xing, who recommended the fund to the investor.
But High Court judge Pang Khang Chau found that Mr Li had told Mr Lou that the fund was a principal-guaranteed fund and that he had also given him the 2009 PPM forms.
If Mr Li had indeed given Mr Lou a copy of the 2010 PPM at the meeting, the judge said he would have ended up with two sets of documents.
"After much toing and froing, Mr Li finally accepted that, based on his version of the events, there would have been two sets of PPM at the meeting, but he continued to maintain that he did not realise (then) that there had been two sets present.
"I find this part of Mr Li's evidence illogical and lacking in credibility," said the judge.
There was also evidence to make Justice Pang find that Mr Li had said the fund was guaranteed.
"It is noteworthy that Mr Li affixed his signature to only one page of the (2009) document, which happened to be the page containing a definition of the fund that employs the phrase 'principal-guaranteed fund (exclusive of management fee)'," he noted.
"In court, Mr Li explained that during the meeting, Mr Xing suddenly asked him to sign this document and he just signed as requested without reading the document carefully. I find this explanation unbelievable."

Mr Li argued that Mr Lou, as a savvy businessman, could not have relied on what he said because he was a stranger he had known for only two hours.
But the judge noted that Mr Li was not just any stranger who had accosted Mr Lou on the streets unsolicited: "Mr Li held credentials as a director of an investment fund which had been approved by a Singapore government agency for the purposes of the GIP.
"That lent credibility to whatever Mr Li said about the fund and made it likely that Mr Lou would believe it, and therefore rely on it."
The defence had also offered another possibility, that Mr Lou was misled by Mr Xing, who recommended the investment fund to people seeking his immigration services.
But Justice Pang said this would run counter to Mr Li's description that Mr Lou was a savvy businessman because it was less likely that he would make an investment based on the words of someone hired to process immigration applications.
So Mr Lou would have deferred any decision to invest until after he had met Mr Li personally, the judge found.
The court then ruled in favour of Mr Lou for about $1,275,000 - his original investment minus the earlier cash payout - plus 5.33 per cent annual interest from the date of issue of the writ in 2018.

 

[millim6868]

She still hv not wake up,our white clowns also.pay themselves handsomely even if they are incapable ,useless most of all CBL,lol

 

[syed putra]

All high iq how come can lose money!

 

[laksaboy]

All high iq how come can lose money!

High IQ without wisdom usually results in self-sabotage.

 

[sweetiepie]

 

[sweetiepie]

So far has anyone sue sg pool ?

 

[Kee Chew]

So far has anyone sue sg pool ?

 

[Kee Chew]

All high iq how come can lose money!

when They on winning streak ; they No sue ; no complaints

 

[Patriotmissile]

Like in a fish market. Too bad today got no prawns, take the Sotongs- Tania Chew.

 

[LITTLEREDDOT]

So far has anyone sue sg pool ?

Many. But when they went to see their lawyers and saw the estimated legal costs, they decided that it was better to invest the money with SG Pools instead.

 

[jw5]

So far has anyone sue sg pool ?

Nobody sue sg pool. But many people curse sg pool.

 

[mojito]

No such thing as bad investment, only long or longer investment.