Raffles Education units awarded $2.9m in damages in India Educomp case
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Raffles Education Group was awarded damages against Educomp founder Shantanu Prakash and Singapore lawyer Dennis Lui.
PHOTO: RAFFLES EDUCATION
Jude Chan
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SINGAPORE – Raffles Education Group has been awarded $2.9 million in damages by the Singapore High Court against Educomp founder Shantanu Prakash and Singapore lawyer Dennis Lui.
Raffles Education Group claimed that Mr Prakash and Mr Lui had devised a plan to mislead the group into believing that Educomp would agree to a buyout of its stake in a joint venture when it possessed no such intention.
The Educomp group of companies include India-listed Educomp Solutions, of which Mr Prakash is chairman and managing director, as well as wholly owned subsidiaries Educomp Asia Pacific and Educomp Professional Education.
Mr Lui was a director of Educomp Asia Pacific from June 2009 to December 2016.
The plaintiffs comprised Singapore-listed private education provider Raffles Education Corp, wholly owned subsidiary Raffles Education Investment India (REI) and India-incorporated Raffles Design International India (RDI).
They claimed the defendants had conspired and made misrepresentations that caused the group to enter into a share purchase agreement and a business advisory agreement with counterparties under the defendants’ control.
Raffles Education Group claimed that Mr Prakash and Mr Lui never intended for the counterparties to comply with these agreements.
In a court judgment last Thursday, Justice Audrey Lim found Raffles Education Group had proved several claims against the defendants.
These included fraudulent misrepresentation pertaining to the business advisory agreement, inducing breach of this agreement and the share purchase agreement, as well as conspiring to injure or cause loss to REI by unlawful means with regard to the business advisory agreement.
The judge found Mr Prakash and Mr Lui to be jointly and severally liable to REI for $221,080, and to REI and RDI for 163.2 million Indian rupees (S$2.65 million).
The sums are subject to interest at 5.33 per cent per annum from May 16, 2017, and from Aug 19, 2015, respectively.
The relationship between Raffles Education and Educomp had started around 2006.
Raffles Education Corporation’s chairman and chief executive officer Chew Hua Seng and Mr Prakash had then discussed the prospect of a joint venture for the provision of education-related services in India.
Shares of Raffles Education closed at 5.1 cents on Monday. THE BUSINESS TIMES
