Jail for ex-sales director who duped employer into thinking it had won NLB tender, pocketed S$37k commission
- A 51-year-old former sales director deceived his company into believing it had won a government tender so he could pocket a S$37,000 commission
- Yip Chuen Wai was sentenced to 10 weeks’ jail for his offence, which took place in 2022
- He forged emails and sent them to his team members, letting them think the emails were from a National Library Board staff member
- To keep up the lie, he even organised meetings with the library board and his team members, but all were cancelled at the last minute
In a bid to obtain a hefty commission, a sales director used a forged letter and emails to trick his company into believing that it had won a government tender.
After his employer fell for the ruse, the software product company, Laiye, paid him a commission of S$37,000, which he used to settle his debts.
On Thursday (June 27), Yip Chuen Wai, 51, was sentenced to 10 weeks’ jail for his offence, which took place in 2022.
He pleaded guilty to committing forgery by fraudulently making false electronic records. This charge was amalgamated with a second similar charge.
Four other charges of a similar nature were taken into consideration for the sentencing. His jail term was backdated to June 4 this year.
WHAT HAPPENED
Court documents showed that Yip was a sales director of Laiye between February and December 2022, when he resigned.
His role was to achieve accreditation with the Infocomm Media Development Authority and generate government sales for Laiye, which specialised in artificial intelligence products.
He was entitled to sales commission that was payable upon achieving its quarterly target.
In March 2022, the National Library Board (NLB) published an invitation to tender on a government-to-business website where suppliers can conduct electronic commerce with the Government.
The tender, which was for the development, commissioning and maintenance support for a chatbot system, was open until July 10, 2022.
On March 23, Yip invited another firm, BioQuest Advisory, to form a consortium and bid for NLB's tender.
BioQuest submitted a bid on April 11 as the leading party in a consortium with Laiye.
On June 28, Yip asked BioQuest to change the consortium lead to Laiye to boost his overall sales numbers.
That same day, he forged an email along with a letter of acceptance purportedly from Ms Harpreet Kaur, an NLB project manager at the time.
The forged email stated that the tender had been awarded to Laiye with a start-work date of July 12 and the consortium lead had been amended to Laiye.
He forwarded this material to his colleagues including BioQuest’s director Yeo Puay Lin and Laiye’s solutions consultants Terence Poon and Tauhid Abdul Jalil.
He had forged the email by amending old correspondence he had with NLB and used Microsoft Word to create the letter, using an original one he had from his previous employment as reference.
Yip did this to induce Laiye to pay him a sales commission of S$37,000, which he received on July 31, court documents stated.
The tender was eventually awarded to another firm, Orange Gum, on July 15, and NLB informed Yip of the decision on July 20.
On Aug 31, Yip emailed his team members to tell them that details of the award had been wrongly published on the Government's e-procurement website GeBiz. He added that NLB would rectify that error and that the team should continue working on the project.
CONTINUED TO MAINTAIN LIE
To maintain the lie, Yip continued to organise meetings with NLB and his team members, but all were cancelled at the last minute.
On Sept 8, he sent another email to the team members, stating that NLB would require three months to rectify the error.
This led to more forged emails in November and December 2022, purportedly sent by Ms Kaur, for the purpose of maintaining the lie of the tender award.
On Dec 29, Yip finally told his team members that NLB had terminated the contract with BioQuest and Laiye.
Laiye then decided to clawback the sales commission it had paid to Yip.
He later failed to make the payment by the agreed date and attributed the failure to his personal financial circumstances.
Even after working out a payment schedule with Laiye, he still failed to honour the payments, resulting in the company initiating legal proceedings against him.
Through mediation, Yip agreed to repay the sales commission in 15 monthly instalments.
So far, he has repaid S$27,133.
In June 2023, Mr Poon and Mr Tauhid from Laiye re-examined the letter of acceptance and discovered several irregularities and shared them with Ms Yeo from BioQuest.
They then made police reports against Yip on June 27 and 28, 2023.
For each count of forgery, Yip could have been jailed for up to four years or fined, or both.
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