CBB v WONG TIEN LEONG WILLIAM

Facts

The respondent, Wong Tien Leong William, a senior lawyer, acted for BKR, a very wealthy widow aged 76 when he met her in 2010. He drafted a trust under which a company that would pass to her daughter AUT took S$5 million for BKR's upkeep, AUT was made protector, and BKR's son (the applicant, CBB) and other daughter were excluded. The trust was signed in Hong Kong on 26 October 2010, the same day a geriatrician saw BKR and before any written medical report. The respondent was a director of the trustee's holding company. Over the following weeks BKR gave UBS conflicting instructions to move her assets, revoking them when away from AUT and reviving them when with her. The respondent drafted a hostile letter for BKR to copy by hand to her son and other daughter, and helped prepare letters before action against them.

BKR's sisters applied under the Mental Capacity Act in 2011. A Senior District Judge found BKR lacked capacity and appointed the sisters as deputies; the High Court reversed this, but in Re BKR [2015] 4 SLR 81 the Court of Appeal held she lacked capacity to set up the trust or transfer her assets, influenced by AUT and her husband. The applicant complained to the Law Society. A Disciplinary Tribunal heard 23 charges in seven groups and found no cause of sufficient gravity for disciplinary action. The applicant sought review in Originating Application No 359 of 2025 before Valerie Thean J.

Issues

1. Whether hearsay documents in the agreed bundle, and the Court of Appeal's findings on BKR's incapacity, could be relied on as evidence
2. Whether there was a prima facie case that the respondent failed to act diligently in BKR's interests and subordinated them to AUT's
3. Whether the respondent acted for AUT under an implied retainer despite her conflicting interests
4. Whether he disobeyed the order appointing the deputies, and whether the court could amend the charges

Holding

The court allowed the application in part. It set aside the Tribunal's determination on the charges in Groups 4, 5, 6 and 7 and directed the applicant to apply under s 98 of the Legal Profession Act 1966 to bring them before the Court of Three Judges, with parts of the Group 4, 5 and 7 charges deleted. The Group 1, 2 and 3 charges, on the respondent's own interests and those of the trust company, were not referred.

Reasoning

On evidence, the parties had agreed to both the authenticity and admissibility of the documents in the agreed bundle. Under s 32(1)(k) of the Evidence Act 1893 that agreement admitted them as proof of their contents. The Court of Appeal's capacity findings were relevant under ss 9, 32(1)(k) and 45, and the Tribunal was wrong to retry the issue; the real question was whether the respondent had notice of BKR's incapacity.

Applying Chee Mu Lin Muriel v Chee Ka Lin Caroline (Chee Ping Chian Alexander and another, interveners) [2010] 4 SLR 373 and Law Society of Singapore v K Jayakumar Naidu [2012] 4 SLR 1232, the judge held he had such notice. BKR told him she was forgetful and susceptible to pressure, she failed to mention an existing trust that already met her needs, the trust gave her no real benefit and favoured AUT contrary to her earlier wishes, and he admitted she might be influenced by AUT. The doctors were consulted late and given little information. Despite UBS's solicitors flagging that her instructions might not be her own, he kept facilitating the transfers without speaking to her alone, drafted the letter that isolated her, and never raised the need for a litigation representative.

The trust's design, which let AUT as protector steer more money to the company she would own, created a conflict he knew of as drafter. Applying Lee Suet Fern, emails in which he sought AUT's approval and acted on her drafting showed an implied retainer, so he acted for two clients with opposing interests.

After the deputyship order he advised BKR on an appeal when she had been found incapable of instructing solicitors, and refused the deputies' requests for trust documents, his bills and terms of engagement. Following Pertamina Energy Trading Ltd v Karaha Bodas Co LLC [2007] 2 SLR(R) 518, orders must be obeyed until discharged, and he should have sought clarification. Disclosure-based charges were inapt because BKR could not understand disclosure, and influence by the trust company's chairman was not shown. Deleting parts of charges caused no prejudice, so the amended charges could be advanced.

From the judgment