Fired SingPost CEO, CFO to contest employment termination, both say move ‘without merits and unfair’

The former chief executive and chief financial officer of Singapore Post (SingPost), who were both fired on Dec 21 over a whistleblower’s report, said the reasons provided for their termination are without substantive grounds and that the process leading to the move was not conducted fairly.

“It is our position that the termination is without merits, and was also procedurally unfair,” former CEO Vincent Phang and former CFO Vincent Yik said in an official statement sent to the media on Dec 23.

They added: “We vigorously contest the termination of our employment, both on merits and on the grounds of procedural unfairness.

“We categorically reject any suggestion that we were grossly negligent, had behaved inappropriately or had sought to misrepresent facts at any point.”

Mr Phang, Mr Yik and a third official, Mr Li Yu, who was CEO of an international business unit at the company, were terminated from employment with immediate effect on Dec 21 after investigations stemming from a whistleblower’s report were concluded.

SingPost said in a Dec 22 exchange filing that it received a whistle-blowing report relating to its international e-commerce logistics parcels business earlier in 2024.

The report alleged that manual entries of certain delivery status codes for international parcel shipments under a delivery agreement with one of its largest customers were made by the SingPost business unit with the intention of avoiding contractual penalties. This was done without supporting documentation.

Internal investigations revealed that three managers in the business unit had committed serious breaches of the company’s code of conduct by manually updating the delivery status codes for parcels it had agreed to deliver to indicate a delivery failure.

In fact, no delivery attempt had been made.

The three individuals involved have been terminated from employment and a police report by the company against them has also been made.

The internal investigations also found that Mr Phang, Mr Yik and Mr Li had accorded undue weight to the misrepresentations by the employees of the business unit without any independent substantiation or evidence, and were “gross negligent” in their handling of the internal investigations.

In the move to terminate their employments, the board of directors noted that it had lost confidence and trust in the judgments of Mr Phang, Mr Yik and Mr Li’s abilities to perform their duties towards promoting and protecting the interests of the company. 

In their statement, Mr Phang and Mr Yik said: “We disagree with and are disappointed at the decision of the board to terminate us from our roles at the company after years of dedicated and committed service.”

They added that they had cooperated with internal investigations.

“We have at all times during our tenure at SingPost acted in the best interests of the company and held ourselves to the highest standards of leadership and management, and will seek recourse against any allegations to the contrary.”

Shares of SingPost opened at 52 cents on Dec 23, down 8 per cent.

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

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