Offences against Property - CBT Flashcards
S 405 PC
- Must be ENTRUSTED with property or have DOMINION over property
2A. Must DISHONESTLY MISAPPROPRIATE or convert to his own use that property, or
2B. dishonestly uses or disposes of that property IN VIOLATION OF LAW, or
2C. CONTRACT.
S 406 PC
General punishment. Other sections cover specific circumstances.
Imprisonment for up to 7 years, or fine, or both.
S 407: Property entrusted for purposes of transportation or storage
S 408: By employees
S 409: By public servant, or by banker, merchant, agent, director, officer, partner, key executive or fiduciary
- Entrustment of property:
Gopalkrishnan Vanitha v PP [1999] 4 SLR 307
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D entrusted with cheques pre-signed by T for company funds. D used them to overpay herself and pay bills. D argued (1) the 3 charges failed to particularise the amount or the nature of the funds; and (2) PP failed to prove that D was entrusted with property.
Held: D’s conviction and sentence upheld.
For (1): “Funds” is neither vague nor meaningless. Not necessary for a charge of CBT to particularise the exact nature of the funds or the amount that was entrusted to D.
For (2): “Entrusted” not necessarily a term of law, may have different implications in different contexts. Most generally, it’s a handing over of possession for some purpose which may not imply the conferring of any proprietary right.
- Entrustment of property:
PP v Koh Beng Oon [2001] 1 SLR 276
D (MD of AA) collected customers’ booking fee, COE deposit, and documents. AA obtained COE financing facility from DP; D subsequently delivered to DP 10 vehicle documents as security.
Held: No restriction on sub-pledging in pledge of the vehicle documents by the customers with AA. D could not be said to have misappropriated the vehicle documents when he sub-pledged them to DP for financing.
No misappropriation = No issue of dishonest misappropriation.
- Entrustment of property:
Viswanathan Ramachandran v PP [2003] 3 SLR(R) 435
A convicted for CBT. Appealed contending that the 2nd charge was fundamentally flawed as he was not entrusted with the sputtering machine.
Held: Charge was amended. Property and proceeds are not similar for the purposes of s405 PC.
Yong CJ: “fallacy in the Prosecution’s reasoning, lay in the assumption that, since shares and their sale proceeds both constituted ‘property’ under section 405, they were therefore one and the same thing; and that accordingly a charge might specify that an accused has been entrusted with shares (‘property’) but that he had dishonestly misappropriated the sale proceeds from those shares (‘property’).”
- Dishonestly Misappropriates / Dominion:
Hon Chin Wan Colman [2002] 2 SLR (R) 821
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D conspired with colleague to illicitly sell goods belonging to Philips to TPs. D appealed that PP failed to prove the entrustment of goods in question and that the goods were the same goods sold to the TPs.
Held: Entrustment of dominion over property was established as D’s job scope clearly involved supervisory and general control over the goods (i.e. could request for goods anytime he wants).
General degree of control can amount to dominion (no need sole dominion):
- Factual: Whether at the material time of the offences D was still holding onto his position as a service logistics manager; corollary to this is whether the responsibility of such a position entailed management responsibility over the relevant goods.
- Legal: Whether management responsibility for goods could be equated with entrustment of dominion over them.
- Dishonestly Misappropriates / Dominion:
Lai Ah Kau V PP [1988] 2 SLR 128
Ds used fictitious contracts and vouchers alleging to pay a sub-contractor’s bills but paid eventually to Ds.
Contended no misappropriation because: (1) there was no intention on Ds’ part to cause wrongful loss to the companies as they did not consider their companies to be “other persons”; and (2) there was no intention to cause wrongful gain in relation to the companies as money taken represented profits and as SHs, Ds honestly believed that they were entitled to take the money as profits.
Held: Scheme was improper, dishonest, and illegal and was designed to benefit all of them and the two companies had suffered wrongful loss. Sums did not represent “profits” and the act of appropriation here was dishonest.
Company directors are trustees of the company monies which come under their control and have dominion over company monies.
- Dishonestly Misappropriates / Dominion:
PP v Lam Leng Hung [2017]
A finding of dishonesty must be premised on the interaction between intention and knowledge.
Whether D intended to do an act that would cause wrongful gain or wrongful loss to another in circumstances where he knew that he was not legally entitled to do that act.
- Violation of Law:
Cheam Tat Pang v PP [1996] 1 SLR 541
Ds (former IPH directors) dishonestly used IPH’s funds to acquire LMP shares, allegedly violating s157(1) CA. Ds argued there was a real danger of prejudice in that they were at risk of being convicted for CBT for breach of directors’ duty under s157 CA; and that there was never any ulterior motive behind the share acquisitions.
Held: Ds’ convictions could not be upheld.
[19] General need for honesty in s 157(1) CA ≠ Sufficiently specific “direction of law” for CBT.
- Violation of Law:
Tong Keng Wah v PP [1979] 2 MLJ 152
D (police inspector) dismissed but did not deliver up his revolver and ammunition as was required by law (s24 Police Force Act). Recovered by some members of the police force in an abandoned dilapidated hut in the premises of the Singapore Police Academy. Consequently convicted of CBT.
Held: [Cheam Tat Pang] - [21] “mode” in s 405 PC interpreted narrowly.
[CTP] - [22] Mode for A to deal with the entrusted property sufficiently specific.
- Express or implied contract:
Cheam Tat Pang v PP [1996] 1 SLR 541
Insufficient to merely show that Ds had acted in breach of directors’ duties, contrary to s157 CA, to establish a finding of dishonesty.
Held, [27]: Directors may take risks with the company’s property where they honestly believed that to do so is in the interests of the company.
Settled law that if the directors take risks which no director could honestly believe to be taken in the interests of the company, such actions could support an action for breach of fiduciary duty.
PP had to show that the degree of risk involved in the enterprise was palpably unreasonable.
