FUGITIVE lawyer David Rasif's name has been dragged back to the High Court, this time by a widow who accuses him of mishandling her affairs.

Madam Lim Quee Choo, the widow of Mr Koh Jit Meng, one of Rasif's clients, is claiming that the lawyer was negligent in trying to recover a loan of more than $3.5 million on her husband's behalf.

Last September, Madam Lim and Madam Wong Peng Luan, who are administering Mr Koh's estate, obtained a default judgment against Rasif and his ex-staff member, Mr David Tan, who is no longer practising.

As Rasif, who vanished with more than $11m of clients' monies in June 2006, is missing, Mr Tan has to answer the current suit alone.

Now Mr Tan has applied to the High Court to set aside the default judgment, on grounds that the suit was not served on him personally and that he has a good defence against the plaintiffs' accusations.

The women claimed they were unable to find him, as they did not have his home address and Rasif's office was already closed. They inserted an advertisement in the press, an acceptable form of serving notice in such a situation.

On 3 Mar, Assistant Registrar Goh Yihan heard the case, with the decision due at a later date.

Mr Koh had lent the $3.5m to Ms Tan Wah Leng and Ms Thian Kim Hoe as their company was facing financial problems.

In return, the two women signed an agreement on 5 Oct 2001, to make Mr Koh a shareholder in the company, Dauphin Offshore Engineering & Trading.

Madam Lim's statement of claim, which was filed in January last year, states that Rasif and Mr Tan had represented Mr Koh in drafting the agreement.

However, the shares transfer was never done and Ms Tan and Ms Thian defaulted on repayments.

Mr Koh died in April 2002 and his widow tried to pursue the debt after she and Madam Wong were named as the administrators of his estate.

Madam Lim's case is that her lawyer had failed to advise her on enforcing her rights under the 2001 agreement, and she had to sue Ms Tan and Ms Thian to recover the debt in March 2004.

Both lawyers are also accused of not seeking Madam Lim's approval before granting various time extensions to the debtors to make repayments.

Madam Lim added in her statement of claim that she discovered Ms Tan and Ms Thian had been disposing some of their assets during the negotiations, and obtained a summary judgment against them for the debt.

Summary judgments are awarded when the facts can be determined without a trial.

Madam Lim then took out a writ of seizure and sale on the debtors' assets, but it was discovered that other creditors had begun bankruptcy proceedings against them as well.

She alleged that she had instructed Rasif to do a bankruptcy search on the debtors, but she claims he said it was not necessary.

Ms Tan and Ms Thian then entered into another agreement with Madam Lim and Madam Wong on 26 Sep 2005, promising to sell their company's assets to settle the debt.

But Madam Lim later discovered that the debtors had been made bankrupt just three days before the settlement was signed.

Dissatisfied with how the case turned out, Madam Lim and Madam Wong discharged Rasif and Mr Tan as their lawyers.

Both women also alleged that they could not ascertain the total amount of legal charges as Rasif and Mr Tan supposedly took some of the partial repayments to settle their fees.

They claimed that Rasif promised to furnish them with a statement of accounts after they complained to the Law Society, but failed to do so.

In his affidavit, Mr Tan described Madam Wong as being 'commercially savvy' and said she and Madam Lim were present during the earlier case and were aware of the risks involved.

On the 3 Mar hearing, Mr Tan's lawyer argued that the court should hear his side of the story as he is still in Singapore and had not seen the newspaper notice regarding the suit.

The lawyer said: 'No serious attempt was made to effect personal service on Mr Tan. What is miraculous is that as soon as judgment was entered, Mr Tan was contacted.'

The lawyer claimed the women had Mr Tan's handphone number all along, but they said they got it only after the judgment was given.

This article was first published in The New Paper on Mar 11, 2008.