Lim Oon Kuin, the founder of the defunct Singapore oil trader Hin Leong, was sentenced to 17-and-a-half years in prison for cheating top creditor HSBC and abetting forgery.
The 82-year-old former oil trading and tanker tycoon, better known as OK Lim, faced three out of more than 100 charges initially presented—two for cheating HSBC and one for instigating a Hin Leong employee to forge documents for the purpose of cheating, totalling $111.7m.
He was convicted in May but sentenced in Singapore’s State Courts on Monday. The court has set the bail at S$4m and Lim will appeal against the sentence.
At its peak, Hin Leong was one of Asia’s biggest suppliers of diesel and bunker fuel. The company’s collapse in 2020 was one of the largest corporate failures in Singapore’s history and resulted in a huge fleet sell-off of subsidiary Ocean Tankers.
Last month, Lim and his children agreed to pay $3.5bn to Hin Leong’s liquidators and HSBC but said they would be applying for bankruptcy. A High Court hearing has been scheduled for November 26 to hear the family’s bankruptcy applications.
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