News
A businessman facing charges relating to his role as a director of three companies allegedly engaged in money laundering here is claiming trial.
XXXXXX, who was charged on March 5 with offences under the Companies Act, and the Corruption, Drug Trafficking and Other Serious Crimes (Confiscation of Benefits) Act (CDSA), told the court yesterday that he will be fighting the allegations.
Three of the charges against the 50-year-old Singaporean are for failing to exercise reasonable diligence in the discharge of his duties as a director of the three companies, all of which are registered in Singapore.
These charges arise from various transfers amounting to $653,093 of stolen funds into the companies.
XXXXX also has to answer to 20 charges stating that due to his neglect, the companies transferred their “benefits from criminal conduct” in “dishonestly receiving stolen property”, which are offences under the CDSA.
These charges relate to various fund transfers out of the three companies, totalling $1,302,808.
The combined sum of fund transfers in question, as mentioned in court documents, comes up to about $2 million.
The director implicated has more than 110 companies registered in his name where he is acting either as a secretary or as apparently as a nominee Director.
Implications
Nominee Director and corporate secretarial industry is a business of volume in Singapore. Many foreign companies operate out of Singapore and usually have a nominee Director for their company for a small fee. As a result of above case this industry is definitely going to impact. More and more secretarial firms will go for putting up detailed AML/CFT measures to be imposed on the clients to whom they offer Nominee Director service.
Many small secretarial firms (which typically operate as one man show) will also get impacted. Prudent clients will like to move to more established secretarial and consulting companies like Transcend which has right controls
