Jason Holdings director, subsidiary under CAD probe

The Commercial Affairs Department (CAD) is investigating Jason Holdings director Jason Sim Chon Ang and the company's wholly owned subsidiary Jason Parquet Specialist (Singapore) over a possible offence under the Penal Code.

Mr Sim was interviewed by the CAD on Monday, and ordered to produce company documents and information for the period 2008 to this year, the company said yesterday.

He was ordered to surrender his travel documents on Tuesday.

Shares of Catalist-listed Jason Holdings, a timber flooring specialist, remain suspended.

They last changed hands at 6.2 cents on Jan 5.

An Ernst & Young report in May highlighted potential breaches of fiduciary duties in the management and administration of Jason Parquet.

These included the unit having paid the hire-purchase instalments of a car registered in the name of Mr Sim's wife, who was then Jason Holdings' chief executive.

In addition, when the car was reported stolen in October 2014, the balance of the insurance proceeds was not returned to the subsidiary after repayment of the outstanding loan.

As a result of the report, a special committee suspended Mr Sim as CEO. Mr Sim's brother-in-law, Mr New Sze Wei, who tendered his resignation on May 1, was also suspended as group operations director.

The report also said Jason Parquet had made certain deposits and pre-payments to other parties using trust receipts obtained from banks without supporting underlying goods. The firm had also obtained accounts receivable financing from different banks using progress claims, with identical work descriptions and values at different times.

There were also discrepancies between the physical quantity of inventories and the records in the accounting system, and inadequate documentation to support the writing-off of inventories, while full physical stock counts were not conducted in recent years.

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A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Straits Times on August 06, 2016, with the headline Jason Holdings director, subsidiary under CAD probe. Subscribe