Three insurance policies worth over S$500,000 to be part of bankrupt estate of OK Lim's son, rules court

Business Times

3 days ago

[SINGAPORE] A granddaughter of fallen oil tycoon Lim Oon Kuin has failed to persuade the court that three insurance policies that named her as the insured and worth half a million should not be part of her father's bankrupt estate.
High Court Judicial Commissioner Mohamed Faizal on Tuesday (Jul 1) dismissed the application of Michelle Lim to declare that the three insurance policies in question are held on trust for her sole benefit by her father Lim Chee Meng, who became bankrupt in December 2024.
Lim Chee Meng's bankruptcy stems from his agreement together with those of his father – better known as OK Lim – and sister in September 2024 to pay US$3.5 billion to the court-appointed liquidators of insolvent oil trader Hin Leong Trading and top creditor HSBC after a 50-day civil trial.
They were sued in August 2020 for US$3.5 billion in debt and US$90 million in dividends that they allegedly paid themselves, even though their firm was already insolvent.
In the settlement reached by both parties in the civil suit, the Lims agreed without acknowledging liability to pay US$3.5 billion plus interest accrued from April 2020 to the date of payment, on top of costs.
They, however, did not have enough assets to pay all the claimants that have taken legal action against them, and applied for bankruptcy.
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Leow Quek Siong and Seah Ron Lin, the private trustees of Lim Chee Meng's bankrupt estate had asked him and Michelle Lim whether a third party would pay the bankrupt estate the surrender value of the three policies in question, which was about S$521,000 as at Jan 16.
The bankrupt estate's trustees would proceed to surrender these policies to AIA Singapore if no third party would pay for them.
Michelle Lim contended that her father intended to hold these policies on trust for her until she turned 21 years old, after which he would transfer the policies to her name.
Thus, she insisted that these policies do not form part of the 55-year-old's bankrupt estate and are not available to any of his creditors.
Lack of evidence
The court noted that there was no legal documentation that formalised the arrangement for Lim Chee Meng to hold the policies for the benefit of Michelle Lim. Her policy documents also did not show any evidence of any trust arrangement between the father and daughter.
Although Michelle Lim adduced four documents as evidence, the judge found that they were either self-interested representations or mere assertions.
First, she referred to a letter in October 2021 from her father to carve out these policies, purportedly held on trust, from other assets subjected to a freezing order in the US$3.5 billion civil suit.
Also, she cited another letter, purportedly from a personal wealth manager from AIA dated October 2021, claiming that these policies and five other policies with no surrender value were held on trust for her by her father.
And, she relied on an e-mail dated March 2025 from Lim Chee Meng to the private trustees as well as a portion of his affidavit filed earlier for his bankruptcy proceedings and attached to the e-mail, in which he asserted that he held the policies on trust for her.
The younger Lim claimed that her father had transferred other insurance policies to her two elder siblings when they each became old enough to hold the policies in their names.
He did not surrender, assign or deal with the three policies without her consent or direction, even though he had financial needs before the bankruptcy, she argued.
While Michelle Lim was named as the insured, the private trustees pointed out that she was not named as a beneficiary in the policy documents.
They contended that the documents she submitted were all bare assertions, and that Lim Chee Meng did not transfer the three policies to Michelle Lim when she turned 21 years old in 2024 despite him having been reminded by AIA.
The judge noted that all four pieces of documentary evidence relied on by Michelle Lim were dated after the commencement of the civil suit and her father's bankruptcy proceedings.
The court should treat with caution assertions that valuable properties are held on trust for another, the judge added, especially when such assertions are made after legal proceedings have begun as the proceedings might result in bankruptcy or insolvency.
'Assertions, no matter how firmly expressed, cannot take the place of evidence; and in this case, the core claims comprised entirely of conclusions untethered to any corroborating factual account,' he commented.
The judge also pointed out that the lack of direct evidence from Lim Chee Meng or Michelle Lim's elder siblings regarding the insurance policies he purportedly took out with her elder siblings as the named insured severely weakened her case.