SINGAPORE - Nine Singaporean investors who had dropped their suit against Brunei's Prince Abdul Hakeem Jefri Bolkiah as part of a settlement obtained a court order last week to force the prince to pay $890,000 plus legal costs after he allegedly defaulted on the agreement.
According to the investors, Prince Hakeem, a nephew of the Sultan of Brunei, failed to make payment despite having settled a dispute with the investors last November over a failed share transfer involving 80 million shares of mainboard-listed Elektromotive Group.
Paul Seah of Tan Kok Quan Partnership, who represents the investors, said the parties had entered into a settlement agreement but the prince failed to honour his obligations under the agreement.
"By the terms of the agreement, the investors were entitled to enter into consent judgment against him and to recover legal costs from him," Mr Seah said.
It is unclear why Prince Hakeem hasn't paid the settlement sums. He could not be reached for comment.
The investors obtained a consent judgment on Feb 15 against Prince Hakeem for his failure to honour his obligations. Should he fail to make payment on the judgment, the investors may have to take up enforcement proceedings.
The settlement with the investors was reached last November after Prince Hakeem settled a lawsuit with Ricky Ang Gee Hing, Elektromotive's executive vice-chairman.
This after an interim arbitration award freezing up to $5.7 million of the prince's assets, including the investors' shares, was to be lifted as part of Prince Hakeem's settlement with Mr Ang.
Under that deal, the arbitration award will be set aside once Prince Hakeem has paid $500,000 to Elektromotive, formerly known as The Lexicon Group, and returned 300 million shares for cancellation.
Elektromotive had launched arbitration proceedings against Prince Hakeem and several other vendors over allegations that Lexicon overpaid $7.42 million for the acquisition of Elektromotive Ltd, a British-based maker of electric vehicle recharging stations.
In court papers, Prince Hakeem said that he was not able to transfer the shares because Elektromotive allegedly refused to issue new share certificates for 300 million shares he was allocated when Lexicon completed its acquisition of Elektromotive Ltd.
He said that he was unable to immediately transfer the shares, which were all recorded on one share certificate dated July 19, 2011, because Elektromotive Group had imposed a moratorium on the trading of the shares until Jan 19, 2012. He added that the investors knew about this but "never insisted that the shares be transferred immediately".
According to Prince Hakeem, once the moratorium was lifted, he took steps to effect the share transfer to the investors by opening an account with Maybank Kim Eng Securities and then delivering the share certificate on Feb 15, 2012, to Tricor Barbinder Share Registration Services. But Elektromotive had allegedly held up the transfer, he said.
- The Business Times
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