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Amy Chew

A CIVIL action brought against investment firms South China Finance and South China Securities by a former employee was settled out of court yesterday.

  Teo Bee Hiong had brought the suit alleging the defendants had sold $27 million worth of shares from her account under ''highly suspicious circumstances''.

  The settlement amount was not disclosed as a confidentiality clause was attached to the settlement order.

  The defendants had also agreed to pay costs to the plaintiffs, Ms Teo and her company, Unicorn Holdings.

  Ms Teo was employed by the defendant companies as manager for a year from April 1989.

  After the court hearing, Ms Teo said her counsel, Michael Thomas QC, Warren Chan and lawyer Rex So had done a fantastic job which resulted in the settlement.

  She said: ''I am satisfied with the settlement'', describing it as a ''fair amount''. But she declined to comment further on the case.

   Yesterday's settlement followed the testimony of a witness, Tam Lai-wah, on Wednesday about shares sold by the defendant companies several months after Ms Teo had left the company.

  In her statement of claim, Ms Teo had alleged the purported sale of shares by the defendants to certain individuals were made in highly suspicious circumstances.

  Mr Thomas had submitted that although the defendants had the right to sell the shares, they did not do so in the open market.

  It was alleged that the shares were sold to three individuals who were nominees of the directors of the defendant companies.

  The defendants had counter-claimed that the sale was done at arm's length.

  They also alleged Ms Teo was in breach of her employment contract with them and that while she was employed with them, she went to work for a rival.

  They also complained of four troubled accounts handled by Ms Teo which owed money to the defendants.

    The court heard that apart from being an employee of the defendants, Ms Teo maintained trading accounts with the defendants in the buying and selling of Malaysian and Singaporean shares on margin accounts.

  After she left the company, an account was rendered to her and her company.

  The court heard that the plaintiffs disputed the accounts but on April 12, 1990, an agreement of sorts was reached between the parties.

  The parties agreed the outstanding accounts would be settled by the plaintiffs and the defendants would release all securities held as margins.

  If the plaintiffs failed to repay, the defendants would then move to liquidate.

  Earlier, the defendants were ordered by the Court of Appeal to reply to about 80 questions put forward by Ms Teo which they had resisted answering.

  While the defendants had replied to most of the questions, they had refused to reply to about a dozen, claiming the plaintiffs were not entitled to answers.



Teo 'satisfied' with settlement in civil action