VICTOR FOO SEANG KWANG v PUBLIC PROSECUTOR

Facts

Mr Victor Foo Seang Kwang, a director of Singapore Precious Metals Exchange Pte Ltd, was arrested on 24 February 2025 on suspicion of consenting to the company providing cross-border money transfer services without a licence under the Payment Services Act 2019. While on police bail, he travelled overseas many times with police permission and always returned. His wife and two sons moved to Malaysia on 17 August 2025, and he sold his Singapore home, telling the police only after the sale was completed. His sons later renounced their permanent residence. After he said his wife planned to do the same and that he no longer owned property in Singapore, the police stopped allowing him to travel.

He was charged on 22 January 2026 and granted court bail on condition that he surrender his passport. A District Judge refused his application to travel to Kuala Lumpur to see his family over Chinese New Year and to assist the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission, finding him a significant flight risk and his reasons not urgent. He then filed Criminal Motion No 16 of 2026, asking the High Court to revise that refusal. Christopher Tan J delivered the judgment ex tempore.

Issues

1. What approach a court should take when an accused on bail applies to leave Singapore
2. Whether the District Judge's refusal involved an error causing serious injustice that warranted revision
3. Whether new reasons and facts not put to the District Judge could support revision

Holding

The High Court dismissed the criminal motion, declining to exercise its revisionary powers over the District Judge's refusal of permission to leave the jurisdiction.

Reasoning

Following Xu Yuanchen v Public Prosecutor, revision requires an error below and resulting material and serious injustice, and the power is used sparingly. The court held that an application to leave the jurisdiction involves the same balancing as a bail decision under Public Prosecutor v Sollihin bin Anhar, between the community's interest in the accused standing trial and the accused's interests. The balance differs in two ways. Refusing travel only narrows an accused's freedom, rather than taking away liberty, and once abroad an accused is largely beyond supervision. Where other factors add to the risk of absconding, such as weakening ties to Singapore, the reasons for travel must be quite compelling.

The judge had reservations about the finding of significant flight risk, because the District Judge had not weighed the applicant's many trips and returns or his company's continuing operations in Singapore. Even so, his reasons failed on a more forgiving standard. Separation from his family was a foreseeable result of their joint decision to move while investigations were ongoing, and his family could visit him in Singapore. There was no evidence that the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission required him in person, and the Prosecution was in contact with it. The refusal was therefore neither an error nor a serious injustice.

The applicant's new reasons, caring for his elderly mother and attending to company operations in Malaysia, and the Commission's later offer to hold his passport, had not been put to the District Judge. Following Sollihin, revision corrects errors and does not consider new material. Such material should go to the District Court in a fresh application.

From the judgment