Note: This is a followup of an article I posted earlier on third-party reviews and special audits, regarding the prior relationship between the compliance reviewer for Datapulse Technology and Low Beng Tin, Datapulse’s chairman.
By Mak Yuen Teen
RHTLaw Taylor Wessing LLP (RHT Law) was appointed by Datapulse Technology as the compliance reviewer after it was directed by SGX to appoint one. The compliance review will be led by Tan Chong Huat, senior partner of RHT Law.
Low Beng Tin, the current Datapulse chairman, was founder and director of OEL Holdings from September 1984 and became chairman and managing director in July 1992. He relinquished his chairman and managing director role in March 2016, became an executive director, before resigning from the board in October 2016. OEL, which was formerly called Oakwell Engineering, is listed on Catalist. The continuing sponsor of OEL is RHT Capital.
In OEL’s 2014 and 2015 annual reports, Tan Chong Huat was listed as the contact person for RHT Capital (in the 2016 annual report, another contact person was listed). Mr Tan would have worked closely with Mr Low during his time as chairman and managing director at OEL.
Given the highly contentious series of events and the dispute between the requisitioning shareholders and the current board, it is disappointing that of all the professional firms that could be engaged to undertake the compliance review, RHT Law has been appointed. In my view, even if Mr Tan is not leading the review, having RHT Law undertake it will seriously affect perceptions about the objectivity of the review, given the relationship between RHT Capital and RHT Law. This is not helped by the deviation in the scope of the review that we have already seen. One can hardly blame the requisitioning shareholders and other like-minded minority shareholders if they feel that the odds against them, already daunting, will prove insurmountable. This really brings home to me how far we still have to go in terms of good corporate governance in our market.
