UOB's appeal fails, High Court upholds compensation of HKD 17.7 million in case of inflated housing prices to deceive banks into lending | Lianhe Zaobao

In the case of the Sheng Tao Wan coastal boutique private residential project inflating property prices and defrauding banks for loans, the Singapore High Court upheld the original ruling, maintaining the compensation amount from UOB at SGD 17.7 million. High Court Judge Xu Delun dismissed UOB's appeal on Wednesday (November 26) to increase the compensation amount to SGD 92 million. He stated that the bank "failed to fully mitigate its losses," and the final interest determined was calculated after appropriate deductions. Xu Delun's ruling was based on a claim amount of approximately SGD 53 million, which included over-disbursed loans, funding costs, credit spreads, and investigation expenses. About SGD 37.2 million was used to offset repaid amounts, as well as rental income obtained by UOB from the recovered properties. UOB also received SGD 2.3 million in statutory interest. UOB argued that the calculation of losses should be based on the premise that if Lippo Marina Collection had no collusion with the two real estate agents, the loans would not have been approved or disbursed at all, claiming losses of up to SGD 92 million. Even assuming the bank would still approve some loans, UOB stated that the loss amount should reach SGD 76.9 million. However, Lippo Marina Collection opposed UOB's calculation method, stating that UOB had not taken reasonable measures to mitigate losses. Judge Xu Delun said, "I find that UOB failed to take risk mitigation measures since 2017, when it should have started selling the relevant assets to reduce losses." When the case was initiated in 2014, UOB argued that it did not sell these units because property prices were on a downward trend at that time, and the seller's stamp duty burden was heavy, so the units were rented out to reduce the outstanding amounts. Further Reading UOB awarded SGD 17.7 million in case of inflated property prices at Sheng Tao Wan private residence, defrauding the bank for loans The lawsuit targets the Indonesian developer Lippo Cikarang and two real estate agents, accusing them of colluding to cause UOB to suffer significant losses after providing over 100% financing for the purchase of 38 apartments in the Cikarang project. The Shengtaowan luxury residential project is a high-end seaside residential area developed and sold by Lippo Cikarang, consisting of 124 units. The project was launched for sale at the end of 2007, but after the government implemented a series of real estate cooling measures, only 42 units were sold by March 10, 2011. The developer subsequently offered buyers high "furniture rebates" of 22% to 34% but did not inform UOB of this information, leading the bank to approve loan amounts based on the sale prices indicated in the agreement, exceeding the then cap (80% of the purchase price), allowing buyers to receive substantial cash rebates. Between December 2011 and September 2013, UOB issued approximately SGD 182 million in housing loans to buyers of 38 apartment units, but by April 2015, all these loans had defaulted. As of 10:40 AM on Thursday, UOB's stock price fell 0.06% to SGD 33.90