Businessman fined $90,000 for bribing ex-SPH executive

SINGAPORE - A businessman has been fined $90,000 for bribing a former senior executive at Singapore Press Holdings.

Liaw Kim Chew, 52, paid Mr Peter Khoo $83,500 in kickbacks. In return, he was awarded deals to supply the media company with promotional items such as T-shirts, pens and mouse pads.

Liaw received the fine last month after pleading guilty to three corruption charges. He has since paid it.

Mr Khoo was in charge of the editorial projects unit at Singapore Press Holdings (SPH), which publishes The Straits Times.

Court papers state that he met Liaw through a mutual friend in 2005. They struck a deal for the businessman's three companies - Sino British Industries, Retro Development and Rifo Global - to supply promotional items.

Liaw then offered kickbacks including a $30,000 bribe that was paid in August 2010.

This helped him clinch a $198,000 deal involving 100,000 coin banks. In total, $689,906 worth of business was awarded to Liaw.

The offences came to light after Mr Khoo, 49, confessed in 2010. Last December, the married father with a young son was fined $100,000 and ordered to pay an $83,500 penalty.

Liaw could have been jailed for up to five years and fined up to $100,000 on each charge of corruption.

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