Information about allegedly sham bonds at the centre of the City Harvest Church trial had been kept from the auditor in charge of the firm issuing the bonds, a court heard on Monday at the start of the third leg of the trial.
Ms Tiang Yii, a partner at auditing firm Baker Tilly TFW, oversaw music production firm Xtron Production's audit for the period January to December 2007. In August that year, the firm signed an agreement to issue up to $13 million worth of bonds, out of which $7 million's worth was eventually bought by the church that year.
Ms Tiang said she had not seen e-mails shown by the prosecution, in which two of the six accused church members, John Lam Leng Hung and Tan Ye Peng, discussed concerns that Xtron could not repay the money it had borrowed through the bonds in time. She had only seen cash flow projections from Xtron which indicated that the firm could repay the bond money.
Had she seen those e-mails, she may have modified or qualified Xtron's audit report, and this may also have affected City Harvest Church's next audit, she said.