Teo Chu Ha Henry and his sister Teo Suya Bik Judy
13 January 2021
Teo Chu Ha Henry, 72, a former director at Seagate Technology International was sentenced to 50 months’ jail and his sister Teo Suya Bik Judy, 68, to 41 months’ jail, and a penalty of S$2.3 million.
Although the offences were committed in China, they were tried and sentenced in Singapore. This law is similar to the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA). Similar legislation exist in countries like the UK. If not for such law the offence committed in a foreign country will never be prosecuted. In this case the offence was committed in China and China cannot prosecute because the offenders are in Singapore. According to Prevention of Corruption Act, Singapore citizens who commit corrupt acts overseas will be prosecuted as if they committed the offence in Singapore.
Seagate had called for open tenders in 2006 and 2009 for the provision of long haul trucking services in China. Teo Chu Ha Henry was a member of the tender committee and had access to confidential information on the tender and passed it to his sister Judy, who was not a Seagate employee.
Judy then passed the information to Feili International Transport and Shanghai Long-Distance Transportation (SLT). The two companies agreed to pay a 10% commission to Judy. Both companies eventually got the contracts and paid the gratification of 10% to Judy.
Between 2007 to 2010, Judy received S$2.32 million from both Chinese companies. Judy wanted to purchase a condominium with this money. Henry withdrew S$703,480 on various occasions using Judy’s automated teller machine (ATM) card and bought a condominium for S$ 1.12 million in Judy’s name.
Henry was previously convicted in another case for receiving kickbacks from a vendor in Singapore.
CPIB worked closely with Chinese authorities in this case. They said that they received excellent co-operation from their Chinese counterpart.
Source: Channel News Asia
