Man in bribery case linked to Keppel Fels has jail term more than doubled after his appeal

SINGAPORE - A man who conspired with two others to obtain bribes from vendors of shipbuilding firm Keppel Fels appealed against his sentence, arguing that one year, five months and three weeks' jail was too harsh a punishment for a "victimless crime".

On Wednesday, the High Court dismissed his appeal and instead more than doubled the jail term to three years, one month and three weeks.

In increasing the sentence handed down to Goh Ngak Eng, a three-judge panel said Keppel Fels suffered the harm of being made to pay the vendors about 45 per cent more than it otherwise would have for the services rendered.

Goh, 55, a director of marine equipment firm Megamarine Services, had referred vendors to jobs with Keppel Fels and asked for the invoices to be marked up.

The mark-ups were shared among Goh and his two co-conspirators.

There was real and actual economic detriment suffered by Keppel Fels, said the court, which comprised Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon and Justices Steven Chong and Vincent Hoong.

In a written judgment, the court said the earlier sentence meted out by a district judge was premised on the mistaken conclusion that no actual harm was caused.

The court said an enhancement of Goh's sentence was necessary to fit the severity of the offences.

Goh pleaded guilty in 2021 to 15 charges of abetment by engaging in a conspiracy with Alvin Lim Wee Lun and Rajavikraman Jayapandian to obtain bribes, as well as four charges of giving bribes. The offences took place between 2015 and 2017.

Another 40 similar charges were taken into consideration in sentencing.

Lim, 42, was a yard manager in the facilities department at Keppel Fels, while Rajavikraman, 47, was a project director at Rotating Offshore Solutions, which builds compressors and generators.

Their cases are pending in court.

The total amount of bribes paid by the three vendors - Titan Offshore Equipment, Spectrama Marine & Industrial Supplies, and Growa - was $879,853.63.

According to the judgment, Lim received $293,822.39, Rajavikraman and Goh each received $191,115.89, and the balance was used to pay Megamarine's corporate tax.

In the 80-page judgment, the court set out a sentencing framework for private-sector corruption offences.

Under the framework, the sentencing court first identifies the level of harm caused and the level of the offender's culpability.

Factors going towards harm include the actual loss and the benefit to the bribe giver, while factors going towards culpability include the bribe amount and the duration of offending.

At one end, cases involving slight harm and low culpability fall within an indicative punishment range of a fine or up to six months' jail.

At the other end, cases involving severe harm and high culpability fall within an indicative punishment range of three to five years' jail.

The sentence can then be adjusted to take into account factors specific to the offender as well as the offender's overall criminality.

In Goh's case, the High Court found that his conspiracy charges fell within the moderate harm and medium culpability range.

He was given between 10 and 15 months' jail for each conspiracy charge, up from the original of between four and nine months.

The court added: "We also take this opportunity to remind accused persons who contemplate filing appeals against their sentences to bear in mind that the court will consider enhancing sentence(s) in cases of plainly unmeritorious appeals, even in the absence of a cross-appeal by the prosecution."