JLC Advisors' Jeffrey Ong faces 19 more charges involving S$17.5m linked to HK-listed firm

Tay Peck Gek

Published Tue, Oct 20, 2020 · 05:03 AM

JLC Advisors' managing partner Jeffrey Ong Su Aun has allegedly misappropriated funds belonging to CW Group Holdings, a Singapore company which recently delisted from the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

On Tuesday, he was slapped with another 19 offences, including deceiving auditors into believing that CW Group's escrow account still held a certain amount of money.

The 43-year-old was accused of removing the funds held in escrow belonging to CW Group totalling S$17.5 million between August 2015 and June 2016, and in conspiracy with Wong Koon Lup on some occasions. CW's then-chief executive was also known as Wong Koon Lup, but the charge sheets gave only the name but no particulars of the alleged accomplice.

Besides allegedly misappropriating the funds in the capacity of a lawyer, Ong was also said to have tricked CW Group's auditors Ernst & Young (EY) from 2016 to 2018 into believing that the Singapore subsidiaries still had multimillion dollars in the escrow account. This led to EY giving a clean opinion on these CW units.

Ong, who has been in remand since last year, faces 76 charges in total.