were convicted of a record 349 successful charges in total,<\/span><\/a> including false trading, price manipulation, deception and cheating.\u00a0Soh\u00a0also received eight charges over witness tampering. <\/p>\nThe duo lost their appeal in October 2025 to overturn their convictions over manipulating shares of Blumont Group, Asiasons Capital and LionGold \u2013 collectively referred to as BAL \u2013 between August 2012 and October 2013. They orchestrated trades through 187 accounts across 20 financial institutions, many of which were misled into extending financing for the scheme.<\/p>\n
Delivering the judgment on March 18, Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon rejected Soh\u2019s arguments that the October 2013 crash was caused by factors beyond his control,\u00a0and that he should not be held responsible for the alleged wrongdoing of a group of individuals who had acted beyond Soh and Quah\u2019s control.<\/p>\n
These individuals \u2013 known as the Manhattan House Group \u2013 included Mr Dick Gwee, Mr Ken Tai, Mr Henry Tjoa and Mr Gabriel Gan, who actively traded the three stocks from a rented office in Manhattan House in Chin Swee Road. <\/p>\n
Instead, the Court of Appeal upheld the lower court\u2019s findings that \u201cSoh was certainly aware of the trading activities of the Manhattan House Group, and saw this as a necessary consequence of the need to keep the scheme going\u201d. <\/p>\n
Soh \u201chad grander aspirations, in that he hoped, over the longer term, to inflate the liquidity and value of BAL shares to a point where the profits could be used to finance other corporate deals he envisaged\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn short, the scheme was an endeavour to subvert the very purpose for which the Securities and Futures Act was introduced, to regulate market activities and to ensure transparent dealing… In doing so, he had also severely harmed Singapore\u2019s reputation as a financial hub,\u201d the court found.<\/p>\n
The court, also presided over by Justice Tay Yong Kwang and Senior Judge Andrew Phang, found \u201cno reason to reduce\u201d Quah\u2019s sentence of 20 years, noting that she had \u201cabused her position\u201d as former chief executive of Singapore-listed IPCO International. <\/p>\n
Quah argued that she was less culpable because she was allegedly Soh\u2019s \u201cgirl Friday assistant\u201d, or someone who simply followed instructions and did not play a key role in the conspiracy.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut there is a limit that (Quah) can take this argument, (especially since) she elected not to give evidence during the trial,\u201d the court said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was therefore little, if any, evidence available to the judge to make any finding on the extent to which Quah\u2019s culpability should be found to have been diminished.\u201d<\/p>\n
Quah, who began serving her 20-year sentence on Oct 17, 2025, and Soh, who has been in remand since Nov 25, 2016, arrived in court handcuffed and dressed in purple prison jumpsuits.<\/p>\n
At least nine of Quah\u2019s relatives and friends, including classmates from Malaysia, were in the public gallery, and they were allowed by the court to speak to her before she was taken away by prison guards. <\/p>\n
Her aunt, Madam A. Quah, told The Straits Times that family members were disappointed as they had \u201cexpected at least two to five years\u2019 reduction in her sentence\u201d. <\/p>\n
\u201cShe told us she\u2019s okay and not to worry about her, and that she will be strong,\u201d Madam Quah, 77, said.<\/p>\n
Separately, Quah\u2019s lawyer N. Sivananthan was hit with a personal costs order of $10,000 payable to the prosecution for \u201cimproper conduct\u201d on his part during earlier appeal proceedings.<\/p>\n
This included alleging that the trial judge was biased against his client, had shown \u201cexcessive interference\u201d in the trial, and had inferred guilt on Quah after finding Soh guilty of witness tampering.<\/p>\n
The court found that Mr Sivananthan had \u201cacted improperly, not only in repeatedly casting spurious allegations of bias against the judge, but also in his subsequent\u00a0repeated\u00a0attempts to downplay\u00a0the severity of these allegations\u201d.<\/p>\n
In ordering costs against Mr Sivananthan, the court found \u201callegations of judicial bias are extremely serious because they can be weaponised by disgruntled litigants to cast baseless aspersions against judges and waste valuable court time and resources in the process\u201d.<\/p>\n
While Mr Sivananthan has apologised and tendered a formal apology to the court, Chief Justice Menon found that this \u201cdoes not absolve him of his misconduct\u201d. <\/p>\n
However, he has \u201cexpunged some of its sting through his apology for, and retraction of, his ill-founded allegations against the judge before us in open court\u201d, the Chief Justice added. <\/p>\n
\u201cSubject to his compliance with the costs order and his remaining true to the retractions and apologies, we think the matter can be laid to rest there,\u201d the court said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
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