Senior counsel Kenneth Tan establishes a timeline of events leading to the second Xtron bond subscription agreement.
CN PHOTO: Daniel Poh.
This morning at the CHC trial, Senior Counsel Kenneth Tan, John Lam’s defense lawyer, brought his client through a series of meeting minutes and emails to create a timeline of events and show how the team reviewed the church’s investments.
The court heard yesterday that the church board was privy to all the details of every investment made by the church’s fund management firm, AMAC Capital Partners. For the Xtron bonds, this was done via a Deutsche bank statement that spelled out the details and purposes of the investment.
This morning, the court also heard that Chew Eng Han, founder of AMAC and CHC’s fund manager, was present at some board meetings to explain the details of investments that the board members needed clarified.
The senior counsel established that Lam had ask Foong Daw Ching, former managing partner of Baker Tilly, for advice on consolidation issues regarding the Xtron bonds in June 2008. Baker Tilly was the audit firm handling CHC and Xtron audits. Foong had said that there was no need for consolidation in the CHC’s audit because it was “a straightforward bond”. Lam asked Foong to look into the bond subscription agreement to ensure that this was the case, and that resulted in co-defendant Sharon Tan sending the Xtron BSA to Foong for his perusal.
At the same time, Foong brought up the question of Xtron’s ability to repay the S$13 million principal sum. Subsequently, Tiang Yii, the engagement partner in charge of CHC’s accounts, brought up the need to do an independent valuation for the Xtron bonds. Lam, therefore, looked into Xtron’s cash flow projection and did an asset impairment assessment.
The chain of emails went on to show that there was a delay in the sales of Sun Ho’s album in 2008 and hence, Xtron would have had issues repaying the S$13 million. Talks of Xtron issuing another bond to CHC then began.
Court resumed at 2.15pm.
中文报道 – CHC审讯：从林的角度重温思创债券
