A MANAGING director who secretly copied a computer file containing confidential information about a military tender exercise was packed off to jail on Tuesday.

The High Court dismissed Charles Tan Chye Guan's appeal against the three-week jail term. He had paid the $5,000 fine.

The MD of du Lexbuild International pleaded guilty in a district court in January to copying the file without authority.

The 37-year-old committed the offence during a meeting with Defence Science Technology Agency (DSTA) project manager Chew Chin Seng (correct) in December 2006 at the DSTA lobby.

Tan had handed his thumb-drive for Mr Chew to upload some drawings relating to the tender for transport containers for munitions for the Singapore Armed Forces, worth about $8 million.

While trying to do so, the DSTA officer's mobile phone rang and he moved to a corner of the lobby to answer it.

Tan then operated the laptop. When he saw a file that he thought could contain valuable information related to the tender, he copied it to his thumb-drive.

The confidential information in the file included the names of suppliers participating in the tender, their bids and DSTA' s evaluation of the respective offers.

Back at his firm, Tan instructed his project consultant to modify the file before e-mailing it to ST Kinetics.

While Tan did not take part in the tender, he had hoped that the his firm could work with ST Kinetics if it won the bid.

In the end, another company was selected, and ST Kinetics complained to DSTA about a suspected leak of confidential information from Tan's firm.

He owned up when confronted and the matter was reported to the police.