Audit working papers from Baker Tilly showed compliance to disclosure requirements of Financial Reporting Standards, despite the need for discreetness.
CN FILE PHOTO.
Presented with Baker Tilly’s audit papers, auditor Foong Daw Ching looked visibly more comfortable giving clear and definite answers to questions posed by the defense.
Senior counsel Kannan Ramesh, defense lawyer for Sharon Tan, used audit working papers from Baker Tilly TFW LLP to show that proper accounting had been done for transactions of the CHC-Xtron bond.
Taking the court through the working papers, Ramesh, with Foong’s confirmation, showed the thinking processes that had taken place between the auditors for both Xtron and CHC. The papers also showed that the auditors had worked to reconcile the transactions to account for the advance rentals being net off against CHC’s redemption of the Xtron bonds.
Much of the morning was also spent establishing that there was nothing wrong, or sinister, about CHC investing in Xtron through AMAC, or about its proceeds being used to fund the Crossover Project.
Ramesh started his cross-examination by establishing that Foong was a Christian familiar with mission work. He asked Foong what the term “tent-maker” meant in a Christian context. Foong explained that a tent-maker was someone who worked and did mission at the same time, earning a keep without burdening the church. He agreed that the Crossover Project was a “tent-making initiative”.
The Crossover Project was a means of using a celebrity to spread the Gospel in countries not open to the Gospel. Foong agreed that, given the sensitivities of the Crossover Project, it was perfectly understandable why CHC would want to keep it discreet. It was, in fact, integral to the success of the initiative that the distance between CHC and the Crossover Project’s secular music was maintained as far as the public was concerned. That was why a third party company, namely Xtron, was set up to manage Sun.
Ramesh suggested that the Baker Tilly auditors–who audited both CHC and Xtron–knew the relationship between the two entities, and were very careful when examining their accounts. He produced audit working papers to show that by April 8, 2008, the audit team would have known that Xtron’s bonds were issued to CHC but they did not flag any issues arising from this.
Upon Ramesh’s questioning, Foong agreed that he personally had no difficulty with CHC investing in the Crossover Project, neither did he have difficulty with that investment taking the form of a bond. He also agreed with Ramesh that as long as the disclosure requirements of the Financial Reporting Standards were followed, if discreetness led to additional benefit, then “all the better”.
Court resumed at 2.30 pm.
中文报道 – CHC审讯：冯同意CHC-思创债券背后无阴谋
