Cordlife probe: Another director arrested amid investigations into mishandling of cord blood units
Seven people have been arrested since the company announced last year that it had damaged cord blood units belonging to at least 2,150 clients, with another 17,000 possibly affected.

File photo of a Cordlife counter at Parkway East Hospital.
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SINGAPORE: Another Cordlife director has been arrested amid investigations into the company's mishandling of cord blood units.
According to a bourse filing on Friday (Apr 5), Mr Yiu Ming Yiu, a non-independent non-executive director on the board, was arrested and released on bail after attending an interview at the offices of the police's Commercial Affairs Department (CAD).
He is the seventh person to be arrested in connection with the case.
"The company understands that the offence is similarly in connection with potential breaches of the disclosure obligations of the company in relation to the irregular temperatures of a certain cryogenic storage tank of the company, which was first disclosed by the company in its announcement dated Nov 30, 2023," said Cordlife.
Seven of Cordlife's storage tanks were exposed to temperatures above acceptable limits, damaging cord blood units belonging to at least 2,150 clients. Another 17,000 clients were possibly affected.
Four directors who were not based in Singapore were required to attend police interviews on Apr 2. Besides Mr Yiu, the other three are are former chairman Joseph Wong Wai Leung, Mr Zhai Lingyun and Ms Chen Xiaoling.
Mr Wong informed the CAD that he was unable to attend the interview due to health reasons and is "uncertain on the next interview date pending the CAD's agreement".
Mr Zhai and Ms Chen have also obtained CAD's agreement to postpone their police interviews to May 21.
According to Cordlife’s website, Mr Yiu was first appointed a director of the company on Dec 1, 2021, and was last re-elected on Apr 29, 2022.
He is the chairman of Everest-Fortune (China) Commercial Factoring, a company mainly engaged in the factoring business in China.
Mr Yiu is also vice chairman of TransGlobal Group (International), which specialises in real estate development, as well as the building and operation of toll road assets in Hong Kong and China.
Besides Mr Yiu, the six others who have been arrested and released on bail are: Former Group CEO Tan Poh Lan, Chief Financial Officer Thet Hnin Yi, acting chairman Ho Choon Hou, independent directors Yeo Hwee Tiong and Titus Jim Cheong Tuck Yan, as well as non-independent non-executive director Chow Wai Leong.
Cordlife said it will continue to remain under a trading halt as of Friday, pending the "preparation and finalisation of an announcement that will be released separately".
It reiterated that it would be "in the interests" of the company for all directors to continue serving on the board.
The company will monitor the progress of the investigations and will cooperate fully with all regulatory authorities, it said.
MISHANDLING OF CORD BLOOD UNITS
The mishandling of cord blood units was made public on Nov 30, 2023, when the Ministry of Health (MOH) announced that investigations against the private cord blood bank were ongoing.
The ministry had received a complaint from a member of the public on Jul 24, 2023, about alleged issues with a storage tank.
It later emerged that Cordlife's board knew of the issue months earlier, in February 2023.
The damaged cord blood units were from one tank that belonged to 2,150 customers.
The remaining six tanks were sent for further tests and the final results to determine the viability of mishandled cord blood units were estimated to be ready by end-March, MOH said previously. This is due partly to capacity constraints at a third-party laboratory conducting the tests.
"Preliminary investigations show that two of the six affected tanks, which stored about 2,300 cord blood units, were unlikely to be adversely affected by the temperature excursions," MOH said in January.
In December 2023, Cordlife said it would accept a six-month suspension given by the ministry.
The company is required to rectify a list of potential non-compliances by May 31. These include ineffective incident reporting frameworks, inadequate training and competence of staff, and the inappropriate storage of cord blood units, among others.
Its cellular therapy accreditation has been indefinitely suspended by the Foundation for the Accreditation of Cellular Therapy, a global non-profit corporation which conducts inspections and accreditation in cellular therapy.