He also won on another count when the High Court threw out a $1 million countersuit brought by the practice against him for leaving the group.

Justice Belinda Ang ruled that the practice, CLAAS Medical Centre, had no basis to sue Dr Ng Boon Ching.

Dr Ng, 52, a general practitioner who focuses on aesthetic medicine, ran a clinic as well as a business selling lasers and intense pulsed light machines to other doctors. He entered into a business venture around March 2005 with six other doctors who were shareholders of the CLAAS Medical Centre.

Dr Ng sold his businesses to CLAAS for $3.2 million and, in return, got a 20 per cent stake in the company. After becoming a shareholder and director of CLAAS, he lent $286,500 to the company without demanding interest for the loans.

But in March 2007, he sold his stake because he was fed up with the 'hypocrisy and factional struggles' among the partners.

After he left, he asked for the return of the loans but got only $50,000 back, so he sued CLAAS for the balance.

CLAAS then counter-sued him for breaching a clause in the shareholder agreement, which barred him from joining a competing business for three years.

It said that any money payable should be offset against the $1 million which was stated in the agreement as compensation for breaching this clause.

But yesterday, Justice Belinda Ang held that CLAAS as a company was not entitled to sue Dr Ng, as the agreement was between him and the shareholders.