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Sunday 17 January 2010
Former bank owner ordered to repay loan
Prominent one-time bank owner Agus Anwar has failed in his attempt to get out of repaying a $10.5 million loan he received in 2008 from an investment firm while in financial difficulty.
Prominent one-time bank owner Agus Anwar has failed in his attempt to get out of repaying a $10.5 million loan he received in 2008 from an investment firm while in financial difficulty.
High Court judge Lee Seiu Kin ordered him to make good on it and threw out his claim in a judgment published on Wednesday.
Mr. Agus’ line of argument had been that the loan was void since the investment firm Orion Oil did not have a licence to lend money.
Orion Oil, through lawyer Kelvin Tan of Drew & Napier, countered that the loan was a one-off deal with Mr. Agus. It added that it was not in the business of moneylending and had never given a personal loan to anyone else.
Justice Lee agreed with Mr. Tan, noting that there was no evidence to show Orion had dealt in a continual string of loan transactions that would have made it an unlicensed moneylender.
The judgment underlined the court’s view that it would not countenance loans taken by people who subsequently seek to use the Moneylenders Act to claim exemptions from repaying loans on the grounds that the lender was unlicensed.
Justice Lee also cited a 2005 judgment by Justice V.K. Rajah, who had made clear that the Moneylenders Act, which prohibits unlicensed lending, was not meant to prevent legitimate financial activity by commercial firms capable of making considered business decisions.
Indonesian-born Mr. Agus, now in his late 50s, moved here in 2000 to start afresh following the fallout of the 1997 financial crisis in Indonesia. He specialised in debt restructuring for major Indonesian business groups.
He became a citizen here in 2004, the year he made headlines for allegedly owing the Indonesian government 3.2 trillion rupiah. The money, equivalent to S$633 million at the time, was said to have been used to bail out two of his Indonesian-based banks which had collapsed in the 1997 crisis.
In September 2008, badly hit by the collapse of the global stock markets and the need to pay his creditors, he received a loan from Orion Oil. It was to have been repaid in three months with $500,000 in interest.
The loan was secured with shares and a detached house in Ridout Road, among other things.
Mr. Agus is now facing bankruptcy proceedings, against which he applied for a stay last month on the grounds that he was looking to raise income from certain sources.
A High Court hearing on this last week was adjourned.
Mr. Agus, a German-trained engineer who used to work in the financial sector in Hong Kong and Indonesia, now deals in investments and operates out of an office in Ngee Ann City.
Justice Lee, in dismissing his case against Orion Oil, called it a ‘totally unmeritorious’ one.
He said Mr. Agus tried to take advantage of a provision in the law ‘to escape his obligations, willingly undertaken at the time when he was desperate for cash, but which he did not want to repay for reasons best known to himself’.
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Former bank owner ordered to repay loan
K.C. VIJAYAN
15 January 2010
Prominent one-time bank owner Agus Anwar has failed in his attempt to get out of repaying a $10.5 million loan he received in 2008 from an investment firm while in financial difficulty.
High Court judge Lee Seiu Kin ordered him to make good on it and threw out his claim in a judgment published on Wednesday.
Mr. Agus’ line of argument had been that the loan was void since the investment firm Orion Oil did not have a licence to lend money.
Orion Oil, through lawyer Kelvin Tan of Drew & Napier, countered that the loan was a one-off deal with Mr. Agus. It added that it was not in the business of moneylending and had never given a personal loan to anyone else.
Justice Lee agreed with Mr. Tan, noting that there was no evidence to show Orion had dealt in a continual string of loan transactions that would have made it an unlicensed moneylender.
The judgment underlined the court’s view that it would not countenance loans taken by people who subsequently seek to use the Moneylenders Act to claim exemptions from repaying loans on the grounds that the lender was unlicensed.
Justice Lee also cited a 2005 judgment by Justice V.K. Rajah, who had made clear that the Moneylenders Act, which prohibits unlicensed lending, was not meant to prevent legitimate financial activity by commercial firms capable of making considered business decisions.
Indonesian-born Mr. Agus, now in his late 50s, moved here in 2000 to start afresh following the fallout of the 1997 financial crisis in Indonesia. He specialised in debt restructuring for major Indonesian business groups.
He became a citizen here in 2004, the year he made headlines for allegedly owing the Indonesian government 3.2 trillion rupiah. The money, equivalent to S$633 million at the time, was said to have been used to bail out two of his Indonesian-based banks which had collapsed in the 1997 crisis.
In September 2008, badly hit by the collapse of the global stock markets and the need to pay his creditors, he received a loan from Orion Oil. It was to have been repaid in three months with $500,000 in interest.
The loan was secured with shares and a detached house in Ridout Road, among other things.
Mr. Agus is now facing bankruptcy proceedings, against which he applied for a stay last month on the grounds that he was looking to raise income from certain sources.
A High Court hearing on this last week was adjourned.
Mr. Agus, a German-trained engineer who used to work in the financial sector in Hong Kong and Indonesia, now deals in investments and operates out of an office in Ngee Ann City.
Justice Lee, in dismissing his case against Orion Oil, called it a ‘totally unmeritorious’ one.
He said Mr. Agus tried to take advantage of a provision in the law ‘to escape his obligations, willingly undertaken at the time when he was desperate for cash, but which he did not want to repay for reasons best known to himself’.
Mr. Agus is appealing against the decision.
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