Presentations to board, analysts on Hyflux's Tuaspring disclosed planned electricity sales: Defence

The defence for Hyflux founder Olivia Lum argued that presentation materials made to the board and the market before a March 7, 2011, news release of the company winning the Tuaspring project showed it did not fail to disclose information about its plans to go into the business of selling electricity.

- Grace Leong

"The team was prepared to share information that excess electricity would be sold in the wholesale market and offer retail contracts to consumers," Senior Counsel Davinder Singh, lead counsel for Hyflux founder Olivia Lum, said on the sixth day of the criminal trial.

He pointed to a presentation stating this intention in his cross-examination of Ms Winnifred Heap on Aug 21.

She is the company's former head of corporate communications and investor relations and the prosecution's second witness.

Hyflux eventually issued preference shares to fund the integrated water and power project. The company's collapse, due to weak electricity sales, left about 34,000 investors of perpetual securities and preference shares, who had sunk in a combined $900 million, with nothing.

Lum is charged with having consented to Hyflux's intentional non-disclosure on March 7, 2011, by withholding information on the project.

Former chief financial officer Cho Wee Peng is charged with conniving in Hyflux's omission to disclose the information about Tuaspring, while four independent directors—Teo Kiang Kok, Gay Chee Cheong, Christopher Murugasu and Lee Joo Hai—are also accused of neglect in relation to this.

Ahead of the March 7, 2011, announcement of Hyflux's win, the company had prepared a list of questions it anticipated would be raised by investors and analysts at a briefing as well as the answers. The Q&A was also disseminated to the management team for review.