SINGAPORE: Two of the three senior executives recently fired by Singapore Post over their conduct during internal investigations into a whistleblower's report said they were not aware of the full facts of the matter when asked for their views.
Former group CEO Vincent Phang and former group chief financial officer Vincent Yik said they would contest the company's decision to terminate their employment. They have argued that their sacking was "without merits" and the process leading to it was unfair.
SingPost previously said that the pair, along with Mr Li Yu, the former CEO of the international business unit, made "false assertions" during investigations into the falsification of the unit's parcel shipment data.
The allegations emerged in a whistleblowing report that the company received in January, after which investigations were launched by the group internal audit (GIA).
According to SingPost, the audit committee met on Mar 11 and Apr 3 to discuss the findings by GIA. As the representations made by management contradicted the findings by GIA, the audit committee engaged the assistance of external legal counsel on Apr 3 and a forensics service provider on Apr 19.
In a statement on Tuesday (Dec 31), Mr Phang and Mr Yik said they were asked for their views on Mar 11 and Apr 3 and "responded accordingly based on the facts that were provided to us at that time".
"Full facts came to light to us only after the external forensics team’s investigations established the causative correlation on Apr 27, 2024," they added.
Their statement came after SingPost responded late on Dec 29 to questions from stakeholders about its decision to sack three top executives at the same time.
"The termination of senior management was a carefully considered decision by the board, based on established facts and supported by legal advice, including a second independent opinion from senior counsel of another law firm," chairman Simon Israel said in a Singapore Exchange filing.
As part of the first phase of investigations, an internal probe found a practice within the international business unit that involved manually keying in the delivery failure (DF) status code for a significant number of parcels that SingPost had agreed to deliver for one of its largest customers.
This falsely indicated that the delivery had been attempted but had failed.
The whistleblower alleged that this was done to avoid the payment of certain contractual penalties to the customer, whose identity was not disclosed.
Three employees from the unit were fired in June and police reports were made against them.
The SingPost board also instructed the management to make the appropriate disclosure to the affected customer, and a settlement amount was agreed upon.
The second phase of investigations focused on the management's conduct during investigations into the whistleblowing report.
SingPost said the three top executives made false assertions which included:
In their statement on Dec 31, Mr Phang and Mr Yik said a "significant majority" of the shipments in question were linked to destinations where there were known issues, such as conflict zones like Israel.
"It was therefore important to establish the financial impact prior to communicating with the customer as well as determining any wrongdoing by junior staff members," they said.
"Once the management was briefed on the conclusive report and findings following the external forensic team’s investigations, we agreed with and followed the instructions of the board."
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Former group CEO Vincent Phang and former group chief financial officer Vincent Yik said they would contest the company's decision to terminate their employment. They have argued that their sacking was "without merits" and the process leading to it was unfair.
SingPost previously said that the pair, along with Mr Li Yu, the former CEO of the international business unit, made "false assertions" during investigations into the falsification of the unit's parcel shipment data.
The allegations emerged in a whistleblowing report that the company received in January, after which investigations were launched by the group internal audit (GIA).
According to SingPost, the audit committee met on Mar 11 and Apr 3 to discuss the findings by GIA. As the representations made by management contradicted the findings by GIA, the audit committee engaged the assistance of external legal counsel on Apr 3 and a forensics service provider on Apr 19.
In a statement on Tuesday (Dec 31), Mr Phang and Mr Yik said they were asked for their views on Mar 11 and Apr 3 and "responded accordingly based on the facts that were provided to us at that time".
"Full facts came to light to us only after the external forensics team’s investigations established the causative correlation on Apr 27, 2024," they added.
Their statement came after SingPost responded late on Dec 29 to questions from stakeholders about its decision to sack three top executives at the same time.
"The termination of senior management was a carefully considered decision by the board, based on established facts and supported by legal advice, including a second independent opinion from senior counsel of another law firm," chairman Simon Israel said in a Singapore Exchange filing.
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WHAT HAPPENED
As part of the first phase of investigations, an internal probe found a practice within the international business unit that involved manually keying in the delivery failure (DF) status code for a significant number of parcels that SingPost had agreed to deliver for one of its largest customers.
This falsely indicated that the delivery had been attempted but had failed.
The whistleblower alleged that this was done to avoid the payment of certain contractual penalties to the customer, whose identity was not disclosed.
Three employees from the unit were fired in June and police reports were made against them.
The SingPost board also instructed the management to make the appropriate disclosure to the affected customer, and a settlement amount was agreed upon.
The second phase of investigations focused on the management's conduct during investigations into the whistleblowing report.
SingPost said the three top executives made false assertions which included:
- That there was no evidence of data manipulation and wrongdoing in relation to the manual DF data entries
- There was no evidence of falsification to avoid penalties
- The practice of manual DF data entries was requested by the customer
- The customer was fully aware of the assumptions of the manual DF data entries and such practice is said to be in line with industry practice
In their statement on Dec 31, Mr Phang and Mr Yik said a "significant majority" of the shipments in question were linked to destinations where there were known issues, such as conflict zones like Israel.
"It was therefore important to establish the financial impact prior to communicating with the customer as well as determining any wrongdoing by junior staff members," they said.
"Once the management was briefed on the conclusive report and findings following the external forensic team’s investigations, we agreed with and followed the instructions of the board."
Related:
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