Ex-director of healthcare firm fined for approving inflated claims, but cleared of bribing AON Singapore CEO

SINGAPORE: A former director linked to the Fullerton Healthcare brand was fined S$160,000 (US$124,000) on Thursday (Aug 21) for approving inflated entertainment expense claims.

But David Sin, 46, was cleared of bribery in an alleged corruption case implicating his colleagues and the then-CEO of Aon Singapore, a health insurance broker.

A judge granted the prosecution's application to give Sin a discharge amounting to an acquittal for five corruption charges and two charges of falsifying accounts.

This means those charges are withdrawn and cannot be brought against him again.

Sin pleaded guilty to six other charges of falsifying accounts in 2019. His offences involve more than S$213,000 of falsified sums.

Sin is the first of four men in the case to be dealt with by the courts. He has been declared a bankrupt and was allowed to pay his fine in instalments.

Aon Singapore's former CEO Collin Chiew, 57, remains accused of taking bribes and money laundering.

Fullerton Healthcare Corporation group CEO Michael Tan, 51, and deputy group CEO Daniel Chan, 51, also face related corruption charges.

Chan allegedly used the money from falsified expense claims approved by Sin to pay bribes to Chiew, with Tan accused of conspiring in these offences.

Chiew, Tan and Chan's cases are still before the courts, with trial dates set from September.

Sin is willing to serve as a prosecution witness at trial, according to his defence lawyers, Ms Melanie Ho, Mr Tang Shangwei and Ms Neo Yi Ling of WongPartnership.

DEALINGS BETWEEN AON AND FULLERTON HEALTHCARE

Tan and Chan, both doctors, founded Fullerton Healthcare Group in 2010. It provided corporate healthcare solutions through a network of doctors and clinics, and helped clients process insurance claims.

Sin became an investor in the company in 2013. He and other investors incorporated Fullerton Healthcare Corporation as a holding company to buy over Fullerton Healthcare Group and its subsidiaries.

Sin served on Fullerton Healthcare Corporation's board of directors from 2013 to 2018, after which he was appointed the company's president.

In 2014, the company won a contract to run the Aon Care healthcare plan created by Aon Singapore.

Under this employee healthcare plan, six insurance companies agreed to use Fullerton Healthcare as their healthcare service provider.

These insurance companies were Great Eastern, AIA, Tokio Marine, AVIVA, AXA and NTUC Income.

Clients could switch their insurers on a yearly basis because the third-party administrator, Fullerton Healthcare, remained constant.

FALSIFIED CLAIMS

In 2018, Chan asked Mr Tei Chu Pink, the China-based country managing director of Fullerton Health China, to claim certain business expenses from Fullerton Health Corporation.

Chan told Mr Tei that the business expenses would be paid from Fullerton Health China's accounts using inflated entertainment invoices, and that Tan had consented to the arrangement.

Chan said that the payments were for "consultancy services" Chiew had provided to the company, according to prosecutors.

Mr Tei relayed this information to Sin, who agreed to the arrangement.

Chan went on to submit multiple entertainment expense claims for approval in 2019, and Sin approved them despite knowing they were inflated.

The claims were denominated in renminbi and involved false KTV receipts. They claimed over S$334,000 in purported expenses, when in reality only about S$120,000 was spent.

Sin therefore abetted in a conspiracy with Chan to defraud Fullerton Healthcare Corporation, according to prosecutors.

POOR CORPORATE GOVERNANCE

Deputy Public Prosecutors David Menon, Jonathan Tan and Ashley Chin urged the court for a total fine of S$150,000 to S$180,000.

This was based on a fine of between S$25,000 and S$30,000 per charge. The maximum fine the State Courts can impose for an offence is S$30,000.

While Sin knew the expenses were inflated and was complicit, he was not the mastermind of the offences and did not derive personal benefit from them, said the prosecutors.

Sin's defence team called for a total fine of S$120,000, or S$20,000 per charge.

They argued that Chan and Tan "misled and deceived" Sin about the true extent and purpose of the inflated expenses.

As an investor, Sin left it to them to run the company's daily operations and trusted they had "good reasons" to pay Chiew in such a manner, argued the lawyers.

They acknowledged that this was poor corporate governance on Sin's part.

"Should he have checked? Should he have done more? Yes," Ms Ho told District Judge Paul Quan.

WENT AFTER FLAGGED CLAIMS LIKE 'A DOG WITH A BONE'

Sin's role in calling for investigations into the falsified expense claims, which ended up implicating himself, was also a point of contention.

During arguments, Judge Quan noted that when Fullerton Healthcare Corporation's auditors flagged irregular claims, Sin "went at it like a dog with a bone and refused to let up".

According to the defence, Sin arranged, pushed for and cooperated with independent investigations to find out the extent of the irregularities.

One such investigation around August 2021 was the "springboard" to a complaint being filed with the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau, the defence argued.

Ms Ho said that Sin wanted a "clean bill of health" for the company so that nothing would scuttle its attempts at a listing or sale.

The judge agreed with the prosecution that these actions were different from voluntary surrender, but they served as evidence of Sin's remorse and contrition.

Taken together with Sin's cooperation with the authorities and guilty plea, this was enough for a slight reduction of his fine, said the judge.

Judge Quan added that it was not for Sin to argue that it was not his responsibility to "micromanage" Chan and Tan's actions.

This was because the trio had the power to approve each other's claims without having to go through the company's finance teams.

They were therefore expected to serve as each other's checks and balances so that they were "always beyond reproach", he said.