A former Keppel FELS shipyard manager has been acquitted of receiving nearly S$300,000 in alleged kickbacks.
The judge said a key witness for the prosecution had possible motive to falsely implicate the man.
https://cna.asia/4xDXpju
The acquittal of 46-year-old Alvin Lim Wee Lun, a former shipyard manager for Keppel FELS, brings to light a high-stakes corruption case where the verdict ultimately turned on the credibility of a key prosecution witness.
The full details of the trial, the alleged multi-layered kickback scheme, and the reasons District Judge Eddy Tham cleared Mr. Lim of all 46 corruption charges are detailed below.
### 1. The Alleged Multi-Layered Kickback Scheme
The prosecution argued that between 2015 and 2017, Mr. Lim was part of a three-man conspiracy to obtain kickbacks from vendors vying for contracts with Keppel FELS (now known as Seatrium New Energy).
According to the state's case, the operation worked like a pipeline:
* **The Sourcing:** Mr. Lim allegedly passed Keppel FELS' business requirements to a former assistant shipyard manager, Rajavikraman Jayapandian.
* **The Setup:** Rajavikraman then passed that data to Goh Ngak Eng (director of Megamarine Services), who looked for vendors to fulfill the services.
* **The Markups:** Chosen vendors were instructed to mark up their invoices. The inflated cash difference was then allegedly split among the trio.
### 2. The Math and the Charges
The two other co-conspirators, Rajavikraman and Goh, had already pleaded guilty to their roles, admitting they each pocketed **S$191,115.89** in kickbacks.
During Mr. Lim's trial, Rajavikraman testified that Mr. Lim demanded a **15% cut** of the total marked-up amounts. By the prosecution’s calculations, that meant Mr. Lim would have walked away with **S$294,208.98**—more than the other two men. To support this, the prosecution pointed to WhatsApp exchanges between the two men and highlighted car loans Mr. Lim was paying off, arguing he was a sole breadwinner living well beyond his means.
### 3. The Defense's Counter-Argument
Mr. Lim's defense lawyers, Justin Ng and Ravinderpal Singh (Kalco Law), painted a completely different picture. They argued that Mr. Lim was entirely blind to the broader conspiracy:
* **A Betrayal of Trust:** Mr. Lim was new to the yard manager position and looked up to Rajavikraman as a senior mentor. He regularly asked Rajavikraman to recommend vendors for challenging projects.
* **The S$4,000 "Token":** Mr. Lim openly admitted to receiving about S$4,000 from Rajavikraman over time. However, he maintained he always understood this to be a casual, personal "token of appreciation" out of his friend's own pocket—not a cut of an illegal corporate scheme.
* **No Direct Ties:** The defense pointed out that none of the involved vendors, nor the third co-conspirator (Goh), had any direct contact with Mr. Lim regarding money. None of them could definitively testify that Mr. Lim had *guilty knowledge* of the invoice markups.
### 4. Why the Judge Acquitted Him
District Judge Eddy Tham cleared Mr. Lim of all charges because the prosecution's case rested almost entirely on Rajavikraman's testimony, which the judge found to be deeply compromised. The acquittal was based on two primary factors:
* **Motive to Falsely Implicate (Self-Serving Testimony):** At the exact time Rajavikraman was testifying against Mr. Lim, he was actively appealing his own prison sentence and financial penalty. Judge Tham noted that maintaining Mr. Lim’s guilt was heavily in Rajavikraman's interest. Retracting his statements would destroy his own appeal, giving him a powerful incentive to stick to his story and falsely implicate Mr. Lim to lower his own perceived culpability.
* **Material Inconsistencies:** The judge found glaring contradictions in Rajavikraman's evidence that went "to the heart" of the case. Rajavikraman gave shifting accounts of how he supposedly recruited Mr. Lim into the scheme (changing details on whether it happened face-to-face or over the phone) and was highly inconsistent regarding how and when he handed over envelopes of cash.
### The Verdict
Judge Tham concluded that while the WhatsApp messages and financial circumstances surrounding Mr. Lim could raise some suspicion, the prosecution fell short of proving *beyond a reasonable doubt* that Mr. Lim acted with guilty knowledge or knowingly participated in the scheme.
While Mr. Lim has been cleared, the legal process may not be entirely over; the prosecution reserved i
ts right to file an appeal against the acquittal.