[cheekopekman]

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/singapor...ng-3478911

Lee Kuan Yew's lawyer ordered to pay S$13,000 in penalties over misconduct in handling of wills

A disciplinary tribunal found that Madam Kwa Kim Li had failed to safeguard the late Mr Lee's confidentiality, and had misled his children Dr Lee Wei Ling and Mr Lee Hsien Yang in an email.

SINGAPORE: Mr Lee Kuan Yew's former lawyer was on Friday (May 5) ordered to pay a total of S$13,000 in penalties in relation to misconduct in handling the wills of the founding prime minister of Singapore.

A disciplinary tribunal ordered Madam Kwa Kim Li to pay a S$5,000 penalty for failing to "scrupulously safeguard" the late Mr Lee's confidentiality while handling his will; and S$8,000 for misleading his children Mr Lee Hsien Yang and Dr Lee Wei Ling in an email response to their queries.

Mr Lee Hsien Yang and Dr Lee are siblings of Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.

Mdm Kwa, the managing partner of law firm Lee & Lee, had prepared a total of six wills for Mr Lee Kuan Yew between Aug 20, 2011, and Nov 2, 2012.

She was not involved in the preparation of a seventh and final will, which was executed on Dec 17, 2013 with the involvement of Mr Lee Hsien Yang and his wife Ms Lee Suet Fern, a lawyer.

The final will restored equal shares of the estate among Mr Lee Kuan Yew's three children, and reintroduced a clause asking for his house at 38 Oxley Road to be demolished.

Mr Lee Kuan Yew passed away on March 23, 2015.


Mr Lee Hsien Yang and Dr Lee, as executors of their father's estate, later made four complaints against Mdm Kwa. Two of these were eventually referred to the tribunal. 

The two complaints are that Mdm Kwa had had breached privilege and duties of confidentiality by sending emails with records of communications with Mr Lee Kuan Yew to all three children, even though PM Lee was not an executor of the estate; and that Mdm Kwa had given false and misleading information to the executors in her emails.

The Law Society took charge of the complaint involving breach of confidentiality, while Mr Lee Hsien Yang took conduct of the complaint involving misleading information.

Both complaints relate to two emails - dated Jun 4, 2015, and Jun 22, 2015 - that Mdm Kwa sent in response to queries from PM Lee and Dr Lee.

Mr Lee Hsien Yang and his wife Ms Lee are not in Singapore, having left after declining to attend a police interview in July 2022 relating to lying in judicial proceedings about the late Mr Lee's will.
.
.
.
COMPLAINT UNDER LEE HSIEN YANG


Mr Lee Hsien Yang, who was represented by senior counsel Abraham Vergis, charged that Mdm Kwa misled himself and his sister Dr Lee in emails dated Jun 4 and Jun 22, 2015 - by failing to disclose her communications with their father between November 2013 and Dec 13, 2013, and/or by falsely representing that the late Mr Lee had never instructed her to change his will dated Nov 2, 2012.

The tribunal did not find that the charge was made out in relation to the email dated Jun 4, 2015. It found that there was insufficient evidence to prove that there was any query that required a reference to the November and December 2013 communications.

However, the tribunal agreed with Mr Lee Hsien Yang that the Jun 22, 2015 email contained a request for information relating to the circumstances leading to the execution of the seventh will.

The tribunal found that in her email, Mdm Kwa did not refer to her communications with Mr Lee Kuan Yew between November 2013 and Dec 13, 2013, which would have contained the related information.

Instead, Mdm Kwa said that the late Mr Lee did not instruct her to change his will after signing the sixth version; and that she learned about the seventh will from others.

Mdm Kwa argued that her statement in the email was true and complete as she was not involved in the preparation or execution of the seventh will.

She also argued that her communications with Mr Lee Kuan Yew in November and December 2013 were immaterial.

But the tribunal did not agree.

"The issues are quite simple. The first question is whether the November/December 2013 communications should have been disclosed in response to a query on the background to the signing of (the seventh will)," it said.

"The second question is whether the omission to disclose made the response misleading. The third question is whether it was true that (Mdm Kwa) did not receive any instructions to change (Mr Lee Kuan Yew's) will."

Mdm Kwa's failure to disclose the 2013 communications, and her statement that the late Mr Lee did not instruct her to change his will, gave the "clear and unequivocal impression that (she) had no knowledge as to how (the seventh will) came about", said the tribunal.

It added that the omission was misleading and that Mdm Kwa's statement that Mr Lee Kuan Yew did not instruct her to change his will was untrue.

The tribunal assessed the harm from this misconduct to be low and determined a penalty of S$8,000 to be appropriate. It also ordered Mdm Kwa to pay Mr Lee Hsien Yang S$12,000 in costs and S$9,182.29 in disbursements.

For both complaints, the tribunal found that there was no cause of sufficient gravity for disciplinary action.
----------------------

Sibeh jialat liao lah!