The terms of the settlement are confidential, but Mr Qwek Koo, who sued the group for about $2.1 million in unpaid incentive payments, said he was pleased the matter had been settled amicably.

The hearing began on Monday with him on the witness stand.

He testified that he had joined Parkway in April 2004 to market the services of the group's hospitals to potential patients from the Middle East.

For that, he was paid $4,500, plus an overseas allowance of $1,500, a month.

But he claimed that a clause in his contract also promised him a 3 per cent cut of the bills of in-patients and day-surgery patients that he referred to the hospital - at least until March 2007, when the scheme was dropped. He received this incentive payment four times between October 2005 and May 2006 - more than $26,700 in all - but subsequent claims went unpaid.

Parkway, represented by Mr Tay Peng Cheng of Wong Partnership, claimed that these payments were a 'mistake' and that no proper verifications were made when payments went out to Mr Qwek.

Read the full story in Friday's edition of The Straits Times.