Court dismisses businessman’s suit against 2 news veterans to recover $990,000 loan

A businessman who sued two Chinese news veterans, seeking repayment of a $990,000 loan he had given to a company that was set up to teach Mandarin in Singapore, has lost his case.

Mr Ren Xin Wu, a Canadian citizen originally from China, had entered into an agreement with Mr Chua Chim Kang and Ms Lee Kuan Fung over a company called Ho­ming Holdings.

He had agreed to invest $10,000 in the company, and also agreed to provide an interest-free loan of $990,000 to the company as working capital for a term of three years.

Mr Chua joined Mediacorp in 2018 as the head and chief editor of its Chinese news and current affairs units. The broadcaster announced his departure on Feb 12, 2025.

Before that, he was with the former Singapore Press Holdings for 18 years and last served as chief editor of the now-defunct evening daily Lianhe Wanbao.

Ms Lee used to head the Chinese media digital strategy department at the former Singapore Press Holdings. She is now a freelancer.

In a written judgment on April 9, the High Court said the agreement signed by the trio did not impose a duty on Mr Chua and Ms Lee to get Homing to repay the loan.

Judicial Commissioner Mohamed Faizal rejected Mr Ren’s argument that the agreement contained an implied term for Mr Chua and Ms Lee to “procure” repayment.

Instead, the judge pointed out, the agreement specifically stated that the loan was on a “no guarantee” basis.

This fortifies the conclusion that the loan was provided “without any assurances, promises, or confirmation on outcomes or results”, he said.

The judge also found that the businessman had painted a “misleading caricature” of phone conversations between himself and Mr Chua.

Mr Ren had submitted two minutes of secretly recorded discussions between himself and Mr Chua in an attempt to support his narrative that the latter had agreed to repay the loan.

The phone conversations took place in August 2020.

“Even taken at face value, it is immediately obvious that there was every chance that this was an intentionally incomplete and misleading piece of evidence,” said the judge.

The full recording – about three hours’ worth of audio – was handed over only after the judge directed for it to be disclosed.

The judge said that when one views the transcript of the conversations that were eventually disclosed in full, quite a different picture emerges than the one that Mr Ren had sought to portray.

“The full recording was, in fact, replete with Mr Chua making repeated assertions that the loan was to the company and therefore did not attract personal liability,” said the judge.

Turning to Mr Ren’s evidence as a whole, the judge said the businessman was “not the most credible of witnesses”.

“Mr Ren’s evidence in court appeared to be so slanted that it was difficult to accord it any credit.”

The judge noted, among other things, Mr Ren’s “conspiratorial” stance that the entire business was an elaborate hoax engineered by Ms Lee and Mr Chua to defraud him.

Homing was set up as a holding company to operate the trio’s joint venture. The agreement was for Mr Ren to hold 35 per cent of the shares in return for his $10,000 investment. Mr Chua had a 35 per cent stake, while Ms Lee’s shareholding was 30 per cent.

Mr Ren’s shares were held by his representative, Ms Huang Ming­jing, while Mr Chua’s shares were held by Ms Lee on his behalf.

Both Ms Lee, who was the main person running the business, and Ms Huang were appointed as directors of Homing.

From early 2020, Homing and its subsidiaries faced financial difficulties, largely due to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Mr Ren terminated the agreement and took steps to seek repayment of the loan, such as serving legal demands on Mr Chua, Ms Lee and the company.

He also applied for Homing to be wound up. The company was liquidated in 2021.

After liquidators were appointed, they discovered two bills which suggested that Homing had entered into an agreement in September 2020 with a company called Goldciti.

Ms Lee said she hired Goldciti to provide corporate advisory services in an attempt to save Homing.

Goldciti had issued two bills to Homing, each for $40,000, but the second one was eventually not paid.

The liquidators then sued Ms Lee and Goldciti to reclaim monies they perceived Homing to have lost as a result of a sham transaction.

This case, which was heard together with Mr Ren’s lawsuit, was also dismissed by the judge.

He found that the liquidators had failed to prove that the transaction was a sham.

One issue raised during the trial was whether Mr Chua had transferred his shares to Ms Lee in 2018, before he joined Mediacorp, or in 2020.

While the judge said this was “of little relevance”, he concluded that Mr Chua probably signed the transfer form in 2018.

Source: The Straits Times © SPH Media Limited. Permission required for reproduction.

Ren Xin Wu v Lee Kuan Fung and another and another matter [2025] SGHC 63

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