SINGAPORE: The Court of Appeal on Wednesday (Mar 18) dismissed the appeals against sentence by a duo linked to Singapore's largest and most serious case of market manipulation, which wiped out S$8 billion (US$6.2 billion) from the local stock market in 2013.
This means Malaysian former businessman John Soh Chee Wen and his former partner and accomplice Quah Su-Ling will have to serve their jail terms of 36 years and 20 years respectively.
The Apex court also imposed a personal costs order of S$10,000 against Quah's lawyer, Mr Sivanathan Nithyanantham, for his conduct in repeating "spurious allegations of bias" against the trial judge and for downplaying the severity of his allegations after being rapped.
On the court's questioning, he confirmed that he had made the allegations without instructions from Quah, so the court did not enhance Quah's sentence on account of the allegations.
Soh and Quah had been convicted of 180 and 169 charges respectively after a long-running trial.
The pair had artificially inflated the share prices of three penny stocks, Blumont, Asiasons and LionGold, from August 2012 to October 2013, using 189 securities trading accounts.
The bulk of their charges related to deceiving financial institutions by concealing their involvement when giving instructions to make orders and trades.
Soh, who was also found guilty of witness tampering by asking four witnesses to lie to investigators after the stock market crash, was remanded and attended the hearing via video-link.
The scheme unravelled on Oct 4, 2013 when the share prices of the three companies crashed, erasing S$8 billion in market capitalisation from SGX.
The appeal against sentence was heard by Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon, Justice Tay Yong Kwang and Senior Judge Andrew Phang.
Soh's lawyers had argued that the sentence was not proportionate to his offending, and that certain factors he was allegedly unaware of at the time had been taken into account as aggravating factors, resulting in a "more onerous" total sentence than was warranted.
Quah largely adopted Soh's arguments but sought to downplay her role and involvement in the scheme, said Chief Justice Menon who delivered the verdict.
The court rejected both lines of argument and "entirely" dismissed the appeals against sentence.
As for Mr Sivanathan, he apologised for his allegations of judicial bias and withdrew them in November 2025. He also tendered a formal written apology to the court.
The Chief Justice said that while this does not absolve him of his misconduct, he has "expunged some of its sting" through his apology and retraction of the "ill-founded allegations".
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This means Malaysian former businessman John Soh Chee Wen and his former partner and accomplice Quah Su-Ling will have to serve their jail terms of 36 years and 20 years respectively.
The Apex court also imposed a personal costs order of S$10,000 against Quah's lawyer, Mr Sivanathan Nithyanantham, for his conduct in repeating "spurious allegations of bias" against the trial judge and for downplaying the severity of his allegations after being rapped.
On the court's questioning, he confirmed that he had made the allegations without instructions from Quah, so the court did not enhance Quah's sentence on account of the allegations.
Soh and Quah had been convicted of 180 and 169 charges respectively after a long-running trial.
The pair had artificially inflated the share prices of three penny stocks, Blumont, Asiasons and LionGold, from August 2012 to October 2013, using 189 securities trading accounts.
The bulk of their charges related to deceiving financial institutions by concealing their involvement when giving instructions to make orders and trades.
Soh, who was also found guilty of witness tampering by asking four witnesses to lie to investigators after the stock market crash, was remanded and attended the hearing via video-link.
The scheme unravelled on Oct 4, 2013 when the share prices of the three companies crashed, erasing S$8 billion in market capitalisation from SGX.
The appeal against sentence was heard by Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon, Justice Tay Yong Kwang and Senior Judge Andrew Phang.
Soh's lawyers had argued that the sentence was not proportionate to his offending, and that certain factors he was allegedly unaware of at the time had been taken into account as aggravating factors, resulting in a "more onerous" total sentence than was warranted.
Quah largely adopted Soh's arguments but sought to downplay her role and involvement in the scheme, said Chief Justice Menon who delivered the verdict.
The court rejected both lines of argument and "entirely" dismissed the appeals against sentence.
As for Mr Sivanathan, he apologised for his allegations of judicial bias and withdrew them in November 2025. He also tendered a formal written apology to the court.
The Chief Justice said that while this does not absolve him of his misconduct, he has "expunged some of its sting" through his apology and retraction of the "ill-founded allegations".
Continue reading...