Ex-execs of CW Group, Allied Tech charged with offences linked to lawyer’s S$76 million misappropriation

[SINGAPORE] The former chief executive of CW Group and executive director of Allied Technologies were charged on Wednesday (Sep 23) with conspiring with JLC Advisors’ former managing partner Jeffrey Ong in misappropriating tens of millions of dollars from the companies.

Singaporeans Wong Koon Lup and Kenneth Low were slapped with 24 and five charges, respectively. Both pleaded not guilty, and were released on bail. Low was granted bail of S$300,000 and Wong, S$280,000, pending trial.

At the time of the offences, Wong was CEO and chairman of Hong Kong-listed CW Group while Kenneth Low was an executive director of Catalist-listed Allied Technologies. Both companies have since been delisted.

Jeffrey Ong Su Aun, the lawyer involved in the offences, was in 2023 sentenced to 19 years jail for stealing S$76 million of clients’ monies, the largest misappropriation by a lawyer in Singapore.

At the time, machine-tool manufacturer CW Group and precision engineering company Allied Tech maintained escrow facility arrangements with JLC, which acted as their escrow agent.

Four of Low’s five charges accused him of abetting Ong, then a partner with JLC, on or before Oct 31, 2017, to commit breach of trust by withdrawing four sums ranging from about S$2.6 million to S$3.2 million from a DBS account in favour of OCBC securities. These sums totalled about S$11.7 million.

The 38-year-old’s fifth charge alleged him of abetting Ong to forge his then partner Vincent Lim’s signature on a DBS cheque dated Apr 15, 2019.

Wong is a businessman based in Hong Kong who founded CW Group.

He faces 18 charges in relation to Ong:

• 13 charges for engaging in a conspiracy with Ong to commit criminal breach of trust as an attorney, misappropriating more than S$24 million held in CW Group’s escrow facility with JLC; 
• one charge of conspiring with Ong and another person to conceal from CW Group’s board of directors the misappropriation of the company’s escrow monies;
• and four charges of conspiring with Ong to provide false audit confirmations to CW Group’s statutory auditor EY with regards to CW Group’s escrow facility with JLC.

Wong’s remaining six charges are:

• three charges of misappropriating about S$17 million belonging to CW Group and its subsidiary CW Advanced Technologies; 
• one charge of instigating a person to provide a false audit confirmation to EY;
• and two charges of instigating his finance staff members to falsify CW Group’s financial statements.

Low was arrested in April 2021 and named as the co-accused in five of the charges that Ong was charged with over the misappropriation of Allied Tech’s escrow funds.

Wong and Low’s pre-trial conferences are scheduled for Oct 27.