THE Court of Appeal has found no merit in three of the five preliminary objections raised by John Soh’s and Quah Su-Ling’s counsels on Monday (Mar 3). Soh and Quah were found guilty of market manipulation that led to the October 2013 penny stock crash that wiped S$8 billion in market capitalisation from the Singapore Exchange.
The appeal was broken into tranches, with Monday’s hearing to deal with the preliminary objections by the defence counsels. Quah, having previously represented herself at the end of the trial in 2021, was represented by Sivananthan Nithyanantham, founding partner at Sivananthan Advocates & Solicitors, at the appeal.
Quah’s counsel raised the objections that:
1) the charges were duplicitous in that there was more than one offence in each charge;
2) the right provisions were not used in sentencing;
3) there were insufficient particulars in the charges;
4) there was inherent bias against Quah by the presiding judge;
5) that a joint trial was prejudicial against Quah.
The point of particulars was pressed on heavily by both Sivananthan and Soh’s counsel, Senior Counsel N Sreenivasan of Sreenivasan Chambers. Quah would claim that she did not understand the charges she was facing. “If you do not tell me what I did, how do I defend it?” said Sivananthan.
According to Sreenivasan, the lack of particularisation in the charges had left the defence in the dark on the approach of the prosecution. “My main issue is the lack of particularisation of the conspiracy charges and (that) the intended criminal offences were not identified with the degree of specificity needed in the (criminal penal code),” he said.
The prosecution answered that particularisation was given in the charges, and that Quah had understood the charges. Deputy Public Prosecutor Nicholas Tan referenced proceedings where her then appointed counsel Philip Fong, managing partner at Harry Elias Partnership, said that his client, Quah, understood the charges against her. There were also no complaints about criminal penal code breaches as well, noted DPP Tan.
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Quah’s counsel withdrew his allegation of bias by the presiding judge, Justice Hoo Sheau Peng.
The Court of Appeal found merit in two of the five preliminary objections raised, but found objections one, four and five without merit. The appeal hearing will continue with the next tranche of hearings which have yet to be announced.
Quah’s bail continues to be extended until the next appeal hearing.
Soh and Quah were found guilty in May 2022 of all the market manipulation and cheating charges they faced, but were acquitted from deception charges. Separately, Soh was found guilty of seven witness-tampering charges involving prosecution witnesses Ken Tai, Leroy Lau and Gabriel Gan, among others.
Both were sentenced in December 2022, with Soh handed 36 years’ imprisonment, including his time in remand from Nov 25, 2016, while Quah was given 20 years’ jail.
The case was described as the “most serious case of stock manipulation in Singapore” by the prosecution. This was one of the Republic’s longest criminal trials, with 96 witnesses testifying over 197 hearing days, spread over two years.
