THE former chief executive and chief financial officer of Singapore Post (SingPost) on Tuesday (Jan 7) said they are prepared to abandon their litigation option if an independent professional inquiry is carried out.
Vincent Phang and Vincent Yik said they welcome the inquiry and called on the Securities Investors Association (Singapore), or Sias, to continue facilitating the “determination of the full facts of the case”.
They noted that their main objective is to “establish the full facts of the case and re-establish our standing and careers, rather than pursue damages”.
“In this regard, we are also prepared for our full responses to the company on the issue, which address all the allegations, to be released to ensure that all relevant facts are made known,” they added.
The duo’s statement follows Sias’ call for an independent inquiry to look into the circumstances that led to the dismissal of the three senior SingPost executives.
Sias’ founder and president David Gerald had called for the inquiry in light of the seriousness of the incident, as well as “the large number of questions still circulating”.
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He noted that the sudden dismissal of the executives and their “vigorous denial” of the allegations against them have raised “critical questions in the minds of shareholders, investors and the market”.
“The fact that they were told to leave with immediate effect points to an extremely serious breach of the rules, which in turn necessitates detailed explanations.”
Gerald also said that the company’s disclosures and the three executives’ responses thus far have raised more queries than provided answers.
Phang, Yik and former chief executive of SingPost’s international business unit Li Yu were fired on Dec 21, after they were found to have been negligent in the handling of internal investigations over a whistle-blower’s report and in subsequent probes.
The report was related to SingPost’s non-regulated international e-commerce logistics parcels business.
SingPost’s investigations into the report found that three managers in the international business unit had “committed serious breaches of the company’s code of conduct” for deliveries for “one of its largest” customers.
They had performed or approved manual updates of the “delivery failure” status code for parcels SingPost had agreed to deliver – without supporting documents and without delivery attempts having been made.
Shares of SingPost were trading up 0.9 per cent or S$0.005 at S$0.555 as at 3.32 pm on Tuesday.
