Tuesday, 4
November 2008
(10.55 am)
MR VIJAY: May it
please your Honour. Your Honour, my
client the
plaintiff wishes to discontinue the action
against the
3rd defendant, i.e. Ed Poole, in his
personal
capacity, and the cost to be either agreed or
to be taxed.
COURT: All right,
leave is granted for that.
MR VIJAY: I'm
obliged, your Honour.
MR TAN: Your
Honour, given these developments, I have taken
instructions
from clients this morning, the 1st
defendants,
and we will be instructing Mr Sreenivasan to
carry out the
cross-examination of certain witnesses in
these
proceedings.
MR VIJAY: Your
Honour, as a matter of clarification, is
Mr Sreenivasan
being instructed or is he assisting
Eugene? It
may become relevant later.
MR SREENIVASAN:
Your Honour, a rose by any name sounds just
as bad, if I
may mix my metaphors. I think I will be
assisting Mr
Tan in terms of the cross-examination of
certain
witnesses.
MR VIJAY: Okay,
in which case it will be a domestic matter.
MR SREENIVASAN:
Yes, entirely domestic.
COURT: That aside
--
MR VIJAY: Thank
you, your Honour.
COURT: All
right. Mr Ong.
WILLIAM GRAHAM (previously sworn)
Cross-examination by MR ONG
MR ONG: May it
please your Honour.
Good
morning, Mr Graham.
A. Good morning
counsel.
Q. I am counsel
for the 2nd defendants, Mason Works. I'm
trying to put
my case to you as soon as I can, as fast
as I can.
However, it will help a lot if you allow me
to establish a
few general truths, non-contentious, as
far as this
case is concerned, and my assurance will be
that when it
comes to the areas where it is contentious,
I will give
you due warning. Is that fine with you?
A. Yes.
Q. Mr Graham, you
are an accountant by training, is that
right?
A. I'm a cost
accountant by training. I ceased actively
acting as a
cost accountant some 20 years ago.
Q. You are also a
company director for a number of years;
am I right?
A. Correct.
Q. So is it fair
to say you are not an ignoramus on these
matters of
companies and accounting?
A. I don't think
anyone ever said that. I think my
abilities in
the area of construction were very much
highlighted as
being minimal.
Q. So would you
agree, "yes" or "no", that your duties as
a director of
the plaintiff is to safeguard and account
for the
company's money; one of your duties?
A. Those are the
fundamental duties of directors, I would
not argue with
that.
Q. So that is a
yes?
A. Yes.
Q. And one of the
ways to safeguard and account for money
is to
carefully monitor the payment of money by the
company's
cheques; am I correct?
A. That is
correct.
Q. Now,
specifically, when you are asked to sign a
cheque,
you would make
sure that the correct amount is being
paid; am I
right?
A. That's
advisable, correct.
Q. And you would
also make sure that the correct amount
being paid is
for items which the company has contracted
for; am I
right?
A. The cheques
that I sign are given to me by the company
accountants.
The company accountants are essentially
giving me
something which they say they have reviewed
and approved.
I assume that that is the case and
insofar as I
am able to check I will check further.
Q. So you are
relying on these accountants to advise you
that the
company is paying for what it's liable to pay?
A. That is what
the company accountants do.
Q. Right. All
that I have said so far also applies to your
own money or
related parties' monies if you are paying
these monies
on behalf of the company; am I correct?
A. That seems
reasonable, yes.
Q. As I promised,
Mr Graham, I will now, then, move to the
areas where
you want to be more careful with me; all
right?
I want to
examine with you the cheques that were
paid out for
these projects carried out by my client.
May I
refer to the 2nd defendant's bundle of
documents,
volume 2, starting with page 413?
A. I see it.
Q. Yes, do you
see that?
A. Yes, I do.
Q. Correct me if
I am wrong; this is a cheque for 13,590
dollars,
payable to my clients on your joint account
with Mrs
Graham, and am I correct that that's her
signature?
A. Correct.
Q. You told us
yesterday your wife is a Hainanese; am
I correct?
A. I believe so.
Q. Are you aware
that the Hainanese do have a reputation
among the
Chinese for being extremely careful with
money?
A. I'm advised
they are extremely good at food. The money
aspect I had
not heard. She is very prudent.
Q. She's very
prudent; that's good. You know the Bible
does say that
he who finds a wife finds a good thing.
So this
cheque was in fact paid to my clients, Mason
Works, as the
30 per cent deposit payment for the
demolition
work, am I correct, on the common demolition?
A. I don't know.
Q. Okay, let me
help you. Could you turn to page 182 of
the 2nd
defendant's bundle of affidavits of
evidence-in-chief? It is a thick volume. Are
you
there?
A. 45,000
dollars.
Q. Yes. This is
for the demolition works of The Pump Room
at block B,
Clarke Quay, quotation number 1576/06. This
is first the
contract document. It's been signed by The
Pump Room; am
I correct?
A. Yes, it has.
Q. Do you see the
part "terms of payment", under which
there is 30
per cent deposit upon confirmation?
A. I do.
Q. Could you turn
two pages down to page 184?
A. I'm there.
Q. There you see
the amount of 12,942.86, being the deposit
for this
demolition work?
A. I see that,
but --
Q. That includes
GST?
A. Yes.
Q. So that's
exactly 13,590; am I correct?
A. You are.
Q. So that must
be what you paid for, am I correct?
A. Well, it's to
Mason Works and it's the exact number and
the date looks
-- I'm trying to read it. My wife's
writing is
appalling. Is that 21st or 27th?
Q. 27th?
A. The date on
the invoice is the 27th. It looks like the
21st,
nevertheless let's assume it was the 27th. That
would be
appropriate.
Q. So it must be
payment for this sum, isn't it?
A. My only
question is the date. It looks as though it is
60 in advance.
Q. Take your
time. I just want a yes-or-no answer.
A. I don't know.
The date on the cheque looks a little
different, and
the invoice, if it was sent, it seems
unlikely the
cheque would be raised the same minute.
But yes, let's
assume it is.
Q. Thank you.
Now let's look at the next cheque at page
414 of this
same bundle.
This is a
cheque dated 11 September 2006, paid from
a Manwin
Consulting Pte Ltd. Is it related to The Pump
Room?
A. When The Pump
Room started it took an off-the-shelf
company called
Manwin and then changed the name.
Q. So you are
also paying on behalf of The Pump Room to my
clients;
right?
A. Yes, right.
Q. And you signed
this cheque with Mr George Clark Martin;
am I right?
A. Yes.
Q. Can you turn
to page 202 of the 2nd defendant's bundle
of affidavits
of evidence-in-chief?
A. I am there.
Q. So you see
here a quotation for the proposed interior
fitting out
works and M&E works for The Pump Room. The
quotation is
priced at 474,770.59; am I right?
A. Correct.
Q. As with the
earlier terms of payment there is a 40 per
cent deposit
upon confirmation and it's been signed by
you; is that
right?
A. That's
correct.
Q. If you turn to
page 227, that's the invoice dated
11 September
2006?
A. Yes.
Q. So that's the
same date as this cheque that you have
signed; right?
A. Correct.
Q. And the amount
payable on the deposit is in fact
189,908.24; am
I right?
A. Sorry, let me
go through this again.
Q. Come again?
A. Could you just
take me through that again.
Q. 227.
A. Right.
Q. So the 40 per
cent deposit amount was in fact 189,908.24
dollars. The
invoice was dated 11 September?
A. I see that.
Q. If you look at
the "paid" chop on the top right-hand
corner of this
invoice --
A. Yes.
Q. -- you will
see that they mention a 11 September 2006
cheque drawn
on DBS Bank, cheque number 000076?
A. Yes.
Q. Then there is
a second cheque later, dated 20 October
2006, also
drawn on DBS but the cheque number now is
000119; am I
right?
A. Yes.
Q. So this cheque
at page 414 of that slim bundle of
cheques, you
know, that you have seen, that corresponds
with the top
DBS 00076 cheque; right?
A. I'm looking
for --
Q. The cheque
number --
A. What's the
amount on that cheque?
Q. 150,000 and
then the second cheque, which is actually
part of page
415 later on, I will account to you that
there is -- if
you have your calculator ready -- later
on I will show
you that that second cheque actually had
a component of
39,908.24 to make up the entire
40 per cent
deposit?
A. Mm-hmm.
Q. So for the
moment all I want to establish is that your
00076 cheque
was paid pursuant to this tax invoice;
would I be
correct?
A. So the 0007
cheque, which is for $150,000 is (unclear --
simultaneous
speakers).
Q. Is for the
deposit.
A. This invoice.
Q. Right. And
almost a month later, my clients allowed you
to defer the
payment of the balance, 39,998.24. That's
really what it
is, isn't it?
A. If I may
explain --
Q. Just answer
"yes" or "no" before you explain, if you
don't mind.
A. Well, I have
not done the calculation. I assume it's
correct.
Q. You assume
it's correct. I will take you through the
next cheque.
Let's turn to page 415.
A. Page 415.
Q. 415 of the
slim bundle of the cheques. That's the
second cheque
that was dated 18 October 2006?
A. Yes.
Q. Mr Graham, I'm
really fortunate that my client is an
accountant, so
he is able to apportion the cheque
payments for
me.
Now, he
has set out very nicely in a table at page
157 of the 2nd
defendant's bundle of affidavits of
evidence-in-chief as to the breakdown -- sorry,
it's the
bundle of
affidavits of evidence-in-chief.
Does your
Honour have it? It is a spreadsheet.
COURT: You carry
on.
MR TAN: Mr
Graham, if you see an invoice number on the
left-hand
column called invoice number 1678, the second
line, you will
see a figure of 33,975 dollars; would
that be right?
A. I see it.
Q. Do you have a
calculator with you?
A. No, I do not.
I'm sure I can get one.
Q. Now, the
33,975 dollars has been described as "Full
payment for
the balance of the demolition works on the
brick walls
for The Pump Room"; do you see that?
A. Which invoice
is this?
Q. Q1678, the
second line.
A. Okay.
Q. Could you --
A. "Demolition
works and new brick walls for the pump room
(full)." Yes,
I see that.
Q. So it's
invoice 1678, being full payment for the
demolition
works at The Pump Room. So you add the
figure of
33,975.
A. Sorry, you
want me to take 33 --
Q. Take 33,975.
A. Okay.
Q. Now, could you
look further down to invoice 1707? It's
the third
paragraph, I think, the first line.
A. I see it.
Q. Do you see it?
A. Yes.
Q. That's for
"demolition of existing party wall and
erection of
new cold room wall deposit". Do you see
a sum of
16,732.80?
A. I see it.
Q. Okay, could
you add that to your earlier figure of
33,975?
A. That is done.
Q. Right. Could
you go to invoice 1708; that's the second
paragraph,
second line. The words are "Interior fitting
out and M&E
work for The Pump Room project, 65
per cent."
That must
be a progressive payment.
A. I see it, yes.
Q. Now, the sum
is 118,692.65 dollars.
A. Do you wish me
to add that?
Q. Yes, do add it
in. Could you now look in this same
spreadsheet
for invoice 1709?
A. I see it.
Q. In the fourth
paragraph, the first line, it's for
"interior
fitting out and M&E works to The Pump Room",
VO1 to VO5,
deposit. And the sum is 102,906.41?
A. Okay.
Q. Mr Graham, you
will recall in the last cheque that the
deposit for
the earlier fitting out works, you were
actually short
by 39,908.24 dollars; do you remember?
A. I do not
remember, but I will accept your word for it.
Q. Now, just
remember the numbers carefully. You add
39,908.24?
A. You want me to
add 39,908?
Q. Yes. What is
your total figure?
A. 312,215.
Q. Ah, voila.
That's what your cheque for page 415 is
about; am I
right?
A. I have no
idea.
Q. The figures
agree, don't they?
A. What am I
supposed to be comparing it with? The cheque?
Q. The cheque,
page 415, do the figures agree?
A. Yes, that's --
and the ten is there as well.
Q. So you must
have paid this cheque for all those items
I have just
listed out?
A. It looks that
that cheque is for those but, you know,
I would have
to go back and do a much more detailed
calculation.
But the coincidence is too great, I would
agree.
Q. Would you say
more likely than not that was what you
paid the
cheque for, bearing in mind you were the
company's
safe-keeper of the money?
A. I would say
that we paid invoices presented to us by
Mason Works,
which the accountant checked, and I assume
she found them
to be correct, but it's based entirely on
Mason Works's
invoices, which I assume to be correct,
but we should
obviously check.
Q. So you did
check?
A. I personally
did not do this check.
Q. Well, I have
checked it with you. Do you find anything
fishy with my
...?
A. You asked me
did I check each of these; I signed some of
the cheques,
not all of them.
Q. Mr Graham, you
have an accountant's training. I don't
even have the
benefit of Mr Sreenivasan's A for basic
accounting.
Why don't I do this: you take your time and
ask yourself
what this 312,215.10 dollars cheque was.
It is a very
exact figure, isn't it? And 10 cents --
A. The --
(unclear -- simultaneous speakers) -- by Mason
Works, that
were reviewed by the accounts department.
The accounts
department clearly thought they were
appropriate.
They passed them to me for signature and
my wife signed
or I signed or Clark Martin signed.
Q. In this case
you signed it; Mr Martin --
A. I'm glad you
pointed that out. We will go back and
investigate
that. I appreciate that.
Q. So you concede
that.
Okay. Go
to page 416, please, Mr Graham.
A. 417 of the
same document.
Q. This slim
volume of cheques. Do you see it?
A. I see it.
Q. Now, this is a
cheque drawn on The Pump Room Pte Ltd,
27 October
2006.
A. Sorry, what
page is this?
Q. Page 416. We
have finished 415.
A. Yes, I see
where we are.
Q. So it's a
cheque to Mason Works for 25,099.20 dollars.
Again a very
unique figure --
A. Yes.
Q. Shall I guide
you to where I think the payment was for?
A. It says here
"invoice 1722".
Q. You see that.
Now, invoice 1722, going back to the page
157, the
spreadsheet, 1722 is for "demolition of
existing party
wall and erection of new cold room
(full)."
A. That's what it
says here.
Q. So this
25,099.20 is full payment for the demolition
works carried
out a second time for the brewery to
prepare the
new cold room wall?
A. This was an
invoice prepared by Mason Works and sent to
us which we
paid in full.
Q. Yes. You see,
the deposit for that has been paid
earlier on at
invoice 1707. The deposit sum was
16,732.80 and
if you added that to the 25,099.20 the
full sum for
that demolition work was 41,832. Am
I correct?
A. It's shown
there, yes. Those two numbers add up to that
figure.
Q. So let's
recap. At this point in time you had fully
paid for the
original demolition to receive the fitting
out works and
now you have made full payment for the
second phase
of demolition where you are getting to
receive the
brewery; am I correct?
A. That's
correct.
Q. So let's go to
the next cheque at page 417.
For this
sum, Mr Graham, could you look at invoice
number 1738,
the second paragraph, third line from the
top; do you
see it?
A. Yes, I see
that.
Q. It says it's
"Interior fitting out and M&E works for The
Pump Room, 85
per cent"; presumably 85 per cent
progressive
payment stage.
A. That's what it
says.
Q. So 94,956.11.
Could you key that number in your
calculator,
please?
A. 94 ...?
Q. 94,954.11.
A. Sorry, that
was not working.
Q. 94,954.11.
Now, could
you go further down the page and look for
invoice 1737?
Do you see the sixth paragraph,
I believe, the
first line, 1737?
A. I have it.
Q. It says,
"Construction of brewhouse and cold room
structural
work."
A. Okay.
Q. And the sum is
30 per cent deposit, 83,820.62. Could
you add that
to the 94,954.11?
A. That is done.
Q. And do you get
178,774.73?
A. I do.
Q. Right. Just a
further confirmation, Mr Graham. Could
you turn to
page 94 of the defendant's bundle of
documents --
the documents, not the affidavits. This is
a thick blue
bundle that looks like this. It has lots
of drawings.
Not in the affidavit; a bundle of
documents.
A. This is
missing -- and I'm not saying it is but I am not
finding it.
Q. It's been
admitted. Page 94, this is the particular
invoice being
referred to. Do you see invoice number
I1737?
A. I do. This is
the one here.
Q. So you see the
total amount, 83,820.62?
A. Yes, I see it.
Q. So this is the
30 per cent deposit claim for the
construction
of brewhouse and cold room at Clarke Quay,
isn't it, for
The Pump Room?
A. Yes. And that
30 per cent -- I can clear this number
now?
Q. Sure.
A. So take that
30 per cent; that would be --
COURT: What is
the point that you are trying to make? That
they paid you?
A. Well, they
paid, having gone through their own
verification
that this was what they contracted for and
these are for
the works that they have received.
MR VIJAY: I don't
think that is in dispute, actually, your
Honour.
COURT: Yes, they
are not disputing it, so do you need to go
through this
matter?
MR ONG: So can
you confirm, Mr Graham?
A. I'm struggling
to follow all these things.
COURT: What is
your position? You confirm?
MR VIJAY: Your
Honour, my client's position is whatever was
invoiced was
paid, except for the undisputed amount
that's not
paid. But if you ask the client for the
details now,
so many people and so many times -- I mean,
all along
there is no dispute.
COURT: That's
what I'm asking you, Mr Ong, is that what you
want to say,
they paid?
A. If you are
asking did I sign all cheques, the answer is
no, I did not
sign all cheques. If you are asking me
did I approve
everything; no, I did not.
COURT: It's not
that. The clients are not denying --
MR VIJAY:
Overall, whatever was invoiced was paid; that's
not in
dispute.
A. I mean, the
fact is, the invoicing and the sequencing
was very, very
complicated and, frankly, the reason we
got Mr Wong to
help us was to try to work out what
should and
should not be paid.
COURT: But the
point is -- I'm saying you don't have to go
through all
this, because they accept that they paid.
Whether it's
complicated sequencing, the fact remains
that they
paid. I think you should move on.
MR ONG: I am
obliged, your Honour. I will quickly move on.
Mr Graham,
I will quickly just let you look through
page 417, the
rest of the cheques, page 418, 419, 420 --
COURT: But they
are not disputing that they paid whatever
cheques, so
why does he need to look at all this?
MR ONG: I am just
confirming with Mr Graham that he signed
all of these.
COURT: There's no
denial that if the signature is there,
it's signed.
Isn't it correct, Mr Vijay?
A. I hope you are
telling me I have overpaid, because I
would like
some money back. If I haven't overpaid, can
you stop now.
MR ONG: Well,
it's precisely because you said that you
overpaid that
I want to make sure that you have gone
through the
process.
COURT: Well, we
assume that they have gone through the
process. I
don't want to hear that people have found no
claim for a
refund.
MR ONG: So Mr
Graham, if you could look through all the
rest of the
cheques up to page 422 --
A. To be honest,
you credit my brain with an ability way
beyond what it
can do. I cannot look at all these
things and
make sense of them (unclear -- simultaneous
speakers).
MR ONG: I
understand. His Honour has already stopped me.
All I need you
to do is look at the rest of the cheques
and confirm
that you have signed them.
A. I did not sign
all of the cheques; I signed most of
them.
Q. You signed
every single one of them.
A. May I refer
you to the first cheque (unclear --
simultaneous
speakers).
COURT: Where your
signature appears, you have signed them?
A. Absolutely,
your Honour, where my signature appears
I have signed
them.
Q. So actually
nine of these cheques were signed by you.
The first was
signed by your wife.
A. Correct,
because at the time we only had two or three
signatories,
so almost everything I would sign.
Q. Mr Graham, I
will just move to put my case to you.
Just tell
me if you agree or disagree. As
a director of
the company with accountant's training,
you were
safeguarding and accounting for the money when
you signed
these cheques. Agree or disagree?
A. We had a
system in place for cheque preparation and
review.
Q. Yes, an
internal control process.
A. Fred Wong was
assisting us to review and was confirming
that the
cheques had to be paid. He was advising my
wife more than
myself, and when the invoices were there
and Mr Wong
looked through them to make sure, as far as
he was
concerned they were okay, then we would assume
that they were
okay and we would sign them.
Q. So when you
signed the cheques you assumed the internal
review was
carried out?
A. An assumed
that the cheques were correct --
Q. Were proper
and in order, right? Yes, okay.
Now, is it
your case that by 8 November 2006, when
you received
what you called an exorbitant quote for the
construction
of the brewhouse at $279,402.06 for the
brewhouse
constructions, you were extremely suspicious
of my clients?
A. The trouble
with that title is it suggests that it is
a brewhouse.
In fact, what that is is a floor and
a mezzanine
structure.
COURT: Can you
please answer "yes" or "no"; were you
extremely
suspicious?
A. I was
uncomfortable, your Honour. I was very
uncomfortable.
COURT: Fine.
Then you say you were uncomfortable and we
will move on.
MR ONG: Mr
Graham, I'm sorry, but I will have to refer you
to your own
pleaded case when my clients claim for the
money.
Can I
refer you to --
COURT: Can you
just state it. If the lawyer does not
object, we
will move on. What is it?
MR ONG: He has
pleaded that he became extremely suspicious
when he
received this exorbitant quote.
COURT: Will you
take his word for it?
A. I will take
his word.
COURT: If he will
take your word, let's move on. We have
many witnesses
to cover.
MR ONG: So you
were extremely suspicious, that's my point,
on receiving a
279,000 quote.
A. I thought that
was very large.
Q. And at that
point of time, it's your testimony that the
shareholders
were unhappy because they had to pay up
more money,
and, if they didn't pay money for the
construction,
their shares were diluted -- am I correct?
A. I did not say
the shareholders were unhappy. I said the
shareholders
would be unhappy if the costs kept
escalating at
this rate because we were --
Q. Okay, Mr
Graham, let me use your exact words.
A. Thank you.
Q. Paragraph 79
of your affidavit of evidence-in-chief.
A. I do recall
that myself and my wife and quite a few
other members
of the family are shareholders. Certainly
some
shareholders were unhappy, not all shareholders
were even
informed, so I can't say that all shareholders
were unhappy.
Q. Mr Graham,
let's stick to your exact words.
Can you
turn to page 30 of your affidavit of
evidence-in-chief, paragraph 79.
A. I am there.
Q. I will read it
for you. These are your words:
"I then
indicated that I would have great difficulty
convincing the
many other shareholders of The Pump Room
of that fact,
given that all our early estimations were
being blown
apart."
A. Yes, "I would
have", not, "I do have".
Q. Let's just
read it. I'm just sticking to your words
like glue, Mr
Graham:
"The
directors were particularly open to criticism
by
shareholders as the entire process of tendering
as
practised by
Ed Poole was deeply flawed and left us
incapable of
judging the quotations. There was only one
quotation
given for the work at any one time. We relied
entirely on
the assurances given by William Lee that
there was no
overcharging and by Ed Poole's supportive
comments that
the prices were correct and that Mason
Works was the
cheapest around" -- so it's them saying
cheapest
around, not us:
"I
therefore stated that I had no other choice but
to seek some
independent advice to confirm that the
prices were
normal and fair."
Now the
next page:
"As we had
to call in more funds, shareholders
unable to
contribute were being heavily diluted in the
percentage of
the company they own. I needed to
reassure them
that this was unavoidable."
So isn't
it a fair characterisation to say that on
8 November,
this was the situation facing your company,
on top of your
being extremely suspicious?
A. You used the
phrase "were", which said that they already
were
expressing, which was not actually the case,
other
than myself
and my wife. I was referring to the future,
as these sums
became due, as we had to put more --
Q. "Yes" or "no",
Mr Graham? Were you suspicious and open
to criticism
by shareholders?
A. I was
certainly suspicious at the time and I was
certainly open
to criticism in the future, if I did not
properly
assess whether these were the right prices or
not.
Q. So is it your
case that, during this one hour long
meeting with
Mr William Lee, you got him to agree to
a price review
by Crispin?
A. We agreed to a
price review by Crispin.
Q. "Yes" or "no"?
A. I stand by
what I've just said. If you say I "got" him
to do it, it
suggests I coerced him and he did not
agree. He did
agree and yes, I --
Q. Mr Graham, you
are putting words in my mouth.
A. Yes, he
agreed.
Q. And this is
the first time an external independent
review had
been agreed to; am I correct?
A. Yes.
Q. So is it your
evidence that, after this major concession
from my
clients and despite your suspicions, you didn't
get Crispin to
start reviewing the prices -- is that
your evidence?
A. My evidence is
--
Q. "Yes" or "no"?
A. I got Crispin
to start reviewing at the end of the
contract as
agreed.
Q. I am talking
about 8 November 2006.
A. I did not get
Crispin to start reviewing immediately.
Q. Right. Even
though you were extremely suspicious and
it's the first
time you got this concession from my
clients, but
you didn't review yet?
A. What I
explained to Mr Lee at the time was the problem
I had was with
the entire process of being given
quotations
with absolutely no way of knowing whether
they were
good, bad or indifferent quotations.
Q. "Yes" or "no",
Mr Graham?
A. I am trying to
give an answer.
Q. No, my
question is "yes" or "no", did you get Mr
Crispin
to review on 8
November 2006?
MR VIJAY: I
believe the witness has already answered no and
he is now
explaining. He must be given a chance to
explain. He
said no.
A. I said no, and
the reason is that the discussion was
about the
entire process of reviewing and, if you like,
evaluating the
quotations that kept coming through.
At no
point did I ever have any basis for evaluating
these other
than the variable assurances of the project
manager Mr
Poole and the contractor Mr Lee. I felt
quite
helpless. The numbers had arrived at very, very
large levels
and I needed some kind of explanation that
I could give
which said that "These are fair, these are
reasonable,
these are market level", and therefore
I proposed
that we have at the end of the project an
assessment by
an expert to confirm the prices were
market level
and reasonable. Because I only knew one
expert, I
proposed Crispin. Fortunately he was also
known to Mr
Lee, and we agreed, yes, let's use Crispin
to do the
evaluation at the end of the project.
Q. Mr Graham, if
you want to go to a soap box, please go to
Hong Lim
Park. Your evidence before the court is just
"yes" or "no",
did you start it?
MR VIJAY: Your
Honour, I think that's really uncalled for.
He is
explaining. He may not like the detail, but he
is
explaining.
"Soap box", I mean --
COURT: Let's move
on.
MR ONG: Shall we
move on, Mr Graham?
A. Please.
Q. Isn't it true
that at this time Mr Fred Wong had also
left The Pump
Room?
A. Mr Fred Wong
left basically, as I recall --
Q. End of
October.
A. At the end of
October, but --
Q. Mr Graham, if
he left end of October he can't be at The
Pump Room on 8
November. It stands to reason, doesn't
it?
A. He was not at
The Pump Room on 8 November.
Q. Right. That's
all I want.
A. That was not
the question you asked me. You asked if he
left at the
end of October. Yes, he did, but he
frequently
came back to assist.
Q. I did not ask
you to tell me why he was gone; I was
asking you
whether he was gone.
A. Well, since
his name kept popping up afterwards
I thought you
might be interested in knowing why.
Q. No, you are
getting ahead of me, Mr Graham, that's my
problem.
COURT: Let's move
on.
MR ONG: So you
were extremely suspicious, Fred Wong has
left, you got
my client's concession and yet you did not
consider a
price review; am I right "yes" or "no"?
A. I thought we
had just agreed on a price review.
Q. Right, but you
didn't do the review then.
A. Because
there's no point reviewing a bit; I wanted to
review the
entire amount, because the process from day 1
was wrong.
Q. My question
is, did you or did you not. In spite of
your
suspicions, in spite of Fred Wong's absence, in
spite of
securing this concession from my clients, you
did not start
the review?
A. I did not want
a piecemeal review in the middle of the
project. We
are trying to open in the next three weeks.
The last thing
I need is someone ricocheting around
doing
reviews. If I'm doing -- somebody in for review
it will stop
the work.
Q. I repeat my
question: you did not start the review,
despite your
suspicions, despite Fred Wong's absence,
despite the
concession that you just got from my
clients.
COURT: No,
really.
MR ONG: No.
Now,
here's the problem, Mr Crispin.
A. I am Mr
Graham.
Q. I'm so sorry.
I think it was about this time that
I lost it.
A. We are all
getting a bit tired.
Q. I'm really
sorry, Mr Graham, I do apologise.
Now, my
problem, Mr Graham, is that on 8 November
2006 you
considered 279,000, thereabouts, exorbitant?
A. For a floor.
Q. And you were
extremely suspicious?
A. I was very
uncomfortable.
Q. And Fred Wong
has left.
COURT: What's
your question?
MR ONG: The
problem, Mr Graham, is that if I added up all
your cheques
paid after 8 November, I arrive at the
grand total of
489,000, thereabouts, to my clients.
A. I don't get
your point.
Q. 498,000, paid
after you were extremely suspicious, is
more than --
210,000 more than your exorbitant sum?
A. The money was
due. During the discussions
I specifically
said, "We keep on paying in line with the
appropriate
amount". I was not withholding payment.
I was perhaps
withholding the retention or whatever you
call it, but
there was absolutely -- I assured Mr Lee
that we would
be paying as required by the quotations we
were signing.
And we paid rigorously until we
discovered,
through Mr Crispin's intervention, that
there was a
very substantial overcharge.
I had no
intention at all of not paying on time and
I continued to
pay very substantial sums of money on
time, even to
Mr Poole. We are not bad paymasters. We
pay our bills.
Q. I never said
you were bad paymasters. My even bigger
problem, Mr
Graham, was that, even after you had engaged
Mr Crispin on
6 February, three days after his
engagement you
went ahead and paid a further 6,222.30
dollars to my
clients.
A. I know, it's
hysterical. I had not received his report.
I stopped
paying when I received a report which told me
that I had
been overcharged by roughly half a million
dollars.
Please.
Q. So let me sum
up your explanation, Mr Graham. Is it
your evidence
that it is perfectly all right to pay more
than the
exorbitant sum when you were feeling extremely
suspicious, so
long as you --
COURT: It was the
question that he could agree to pay until
he got
information that it was --
MR ONG: I
understand.
COURT: He has
already given his answer.
MR ONG: And your
answer is really that as long as you have
an agreement
to review, that's all right, to pay when
you are
suspicious. That's your point.
A. My undertaking
was to pay the bills as due. I never
said I was
going to hold back bills. I have to confess,
I was not
expecting a half-million-dollar surprise.
I actually
said to Mr Lee that 5 or 10 per cent is okay,
I won't bother
about it.
Q. Mr Graham,
isn't it true that if the defendant went bust
or ran away
with the money while the review was going
on, the
shareholder would lose the money, whatever the
outcome of the
review?
COURT: That, I
think, you can leave for submissions. Just
move on.
MR ONG: Let me
put it to you, Mr Graham, your actions and
your payment
are not consistent with the behaviour of
someone who is
an accountant, a company director,
safeguarding
money, who was feeling extremely suspicious
about the
party he is making payment to?
A. I was
reassured by Mr Lee.
Q. Just agree or
disagree.
A. I abode by my
obligations.
Q. I am saying
your conduct in paying the money is not
consistent
with your suspicions. Agree or disagree?
A. Disagree.
Q. Mr Graham,
let's go to the issue with my clients at page
177 and 178 of
your affidavit of evidence-in-chief.
A. This is my
affidavit?
Q. Yes, yours.
Sorry, 176 and 177. Do you have the pages,
Mr Graham?
A. Yes, I know
these well.
Q. Now, these are
the same quotation for the construction
of the
brewery; am I right?
A. Correct.
Q. What is
different is that on page 176 Crispin is
described as
"an independent consultant (Crispin)",
correct?
A. Correct.
Q. And on page
177, Crispin, lo and behold, has become
"a qualified
engineer (Crispin)"?
A. My description
of qualifications in the construction
industry
leaves much to be desired, I have to agree.
Q. Leaves much to
be desired? Let me see your exact words,
Mr Graham.
At page 31
of your affidavit of evidence-in-chief,
the last
paragraph at the bottom of the page --
COURT: Which
page?
MR ONG: Page 31
of Mr Graham's affidavit of
evidence-in-chief. It's all part of a long
paragraph 79
which started
on the preceding page, your Honour.
The last
paragraph at the bottom the page, starting
with:
"I then
suggested Crispin Casimir as the expert,
a professional
I know and respected. I was pleased to
hear from
William Lee that Mason Works had used him in
the past and
had no objections to him."
Now, this
is the part:
"I then
added a clause to the quotation documenting
the review to
be carried out by Crispin and stating the
pricing was
subject to that review."
Here are
bold words:
"I
handwrote the clause on two copies of the
quotation,
passed one to William Lee and I kept the
other."
Now, that
suggest that you wrote them at the same
time, Mr
Graham, is that right?
A. I wrote them
about the same time.
Q. One after the
other, really.
A. I wrote them
ten or 15 minutes apart, because I wrote
one and then
some time later I realised, "Oh, there's
only one copy;
I had better get an original copy for
William", and
I wrote the second one.
Q. So what you
are really saying is that you wrote one
copy, gave it
to William, and he had left before you
said, "Hey,
let me write you another copy"?
A. Could I ask if
I said that? I don't recall saying that.
Q. No, you
didn't, but I am trying to tell you that if you
wrote them at
the same time there is no way you could
have made this
error.
A. Well, welcome
to the real world: I did. I made that
error. But to
me it's not an error; it's simply -- I'm
writing and
trying to say the same thing and I get it
a little bit
wrong. I called him an engineer --
Q. You were in
court, Mr Graham, when we had to dispute
with Mr
Crispin as to whether a building surveyor is the
same as
quantity surveyor. You made a quantum leap to
a qualified
engineer, and you think that is nothing? Is
that your
evidence?
A. It is Crispin.
Q. And you want
us to believe that?
A. It is Crispin.
Q. It says
Crispin, but why is a Crispin an engineer --
A. There's only
one Crispin. He is not an engineer.
I made an
honest mistake.
Q. I am not
saying your mistake wasn't honest; I am saying
the sequence
cannot be right. If you wrote them one
after the
other, it wouldn't happen. So now you tell us
it was 15
minutes apart?
A. I didn't say
exactly -- it could have been 15 minutes;
it could have
been 5 minutes; I was not timing it at the
time. It may
have been one after the other. It may
have been 1
minute, 2 minutes, 5 minutes; I simply do
not recall.
They were both written at the meeting and
we both took
an original.
Q. It's fair to
say, Mr Graham, that the "qualified
engineer"
document must have been the one you retained,
isn't it,
because that's what Crispin had? He didn't
have the other
one.
A. So William had
the more accurate one.
Q. So Crispin had
the inaccurate one?
A. William had
the more accurate one.
Q. Yes,
logically, Crispin, to you, had the inaccurate
one?
"Yes" or "no".
A. The inaccuracy
is in the title of Crispin.
Q. I am not
asking about the reason for it; I am asking is
there an
inaccurate copy with you.
A. There is a
copy which describes Crispin as an engineer.
That is a
wrong description.
Q. Your copy to
Crispin is inaccurate, "yes" or "no"?
A. By containing
the word "engineer", he was wrongly
described as
an engineer.
Q. So, "yes" or
"no", it was inaccurate?
A. Yes, calling
Crispin an engineer is inaccurate.
Q. You know, Mr
Graham, may I respectfully suggest you
don't cross
your arms when you are testifying.
A. I am tired.
Q. His Honour is
watching your demeanour. That is just my
suggestion;
you don't have to follow it.
A. I apologise,
your Honour, I find rest in this way more
easily. This
is more relaxing. I am supporting myself
this way. If
your Honour finds it offensive I will try
to do
something else.
COURT: No, if you
are tired we will give you a ten-minute
break. Are
you tired?
A. I respect the
court has a need to move on.
COURT: No, I'm
not worried about that; I am concerned
whether you
are tired or not.
A. Well, I have
just got to get tired and start up again.
Thank you,
your Honour, I appreciate --
COURT: We will
have a short break.
(11.58 am)
(Short break)
(12.17 pm)
MR ONG: Just a
few short questions and we will be done,
Mr Graham.
Bear with me.
Now, this
review by Crispin, let me take you back to
page 177 of
your affidavit of evidence-in-chief. On the
top left-hand
corner you have written, "Same retention
as main
contract"; am I right?
A. Correct.
Q. Would you
agree that this review by Crispin only applies
to this
brewhouse contract?
A. I disagree.
Q. Can you
confirm, "yes" or "no", that you didn't apply
this review by
Crispin to any other quotation by
Mason Works
beyond this review -- beyond this contract?
A. I applied this
review to all the quotations by
Mason Works.
Q. My question is
did you write this review by Crispin on
all the other
quotations by Mason Works, "yes" or "no"?
A. No.
Q. Then do you
agree with me that this alleged review by
Crispin only
applies to this brewhouse contract?
A. That was not
what was agreed.
Q. So you
disagree?
A. I disagree.
Q. Do you agree
that it was a mistake to write -- to
describe Mr
Crispin as a qualified engineer?
COURT: He has
already said so.
MR ONG: Yes, sir.
Can I put
it to you that such a mistake did not
matter to you
because you never intended to act on your
suspicions
with this review clause on 8 November 2006?
Do you agree
or disagree?
A. I disagree.
Q. I put it to
you that you didn't carry out any other
check on the
pricing even when your suspicions about
Mason Works
were at their deepest on 8 November 2006?
A. I did not have
to -- I'd an agreement for
a
comprehensive review
Q. Let me put it
to you, which is my case, that all along
you knew you
had contracted for the project at
Mason Works'
pricing. Do you agree?
A. I disagree.
Q. I further put
it to you that Fred Wong has all along
informed you
that Mason Works' charges were correct and
in order; do
you agree?
A. I disagree.
Q. I further put
it to you that you paid Mason Works
because you
knew that if you didn't pay you would be in
breach of
contract; do you agree?
A. I paid Mason
Works in accordance with the schedule of
payments. I'm
a good paymaster.
Q. Disagree or
agree?
A. I did not pay
them because of breaching contracts;
I paid them
because I was due to pay them.
Q. No, the
question is: you paid them because if you didn't
pay you would
be in breach of contract. Agree or
disagree?
A. That is not
why I paid them.
Q. Do you agree
or disagree?
A. I disagree.
Q. Right. I
further put it to you that you approached
Mr Crispin so
late because you had an arrangement with
him such that
he would provide a valuation report that
Mason Works
overcharged, regardless of his on belief.
Do you agree
or disagree?
A. I have to
correct your comment "so late". I approached
Mr Crispin
when the project was completed. It was not
completed
until the middle of February.
Q. I will
rephrase this "put", then. I put it to you that
you approached
Crispin three months after November 2006
because you
had an arrangement with him such that he
would provide
a valuation report that Mason Works had
overcharged
regardless of whether it's true or not. Do
you agree?
A. I did not talk
to Crispin until January, how could
I possibly
have had an arrangement with him in November?
Q. I put it to
you that you had this arrangement starting
from the time
you had engaged him to counterclaim
against
contractors who sued you?
A. I disagree.
Q. Finally, I put
it to you that your agreement with
Crispin was
that if Mason Works demanded for the balance
payment,
Crispin's report would be produced to frighten
them into
foregoing their claim -- do you agree?
A. I don't think
Mason Works frighten easily. I disagree
totally.
MR ONG: That's
all I have, your Honour.
COURT: Thank you.
Re-examination by MR VIJAY
MR VIJAY: It will
be very short.
I'll just
re-examine on only one part. With regard
to Crispin
Casimir's report, would you like to comment
anything
further on Crispin Casimir's finding of excess
amount of 550?
COURT: That is an
open-ended question. Crispin has given
his own
evidence.
MR VIJAY: Yes.
Okay. I have no re-examination.
COURT: All right
then. Thank you very much.
(The witness withdrew)
MR VIJAY: May I
call the next witness, your Honour?
COURT: Yes.
MR SREENIVASAN:
Your Honour, given that we are going to be
doing the next
few witnesses very fast, perhaps my
learned friend
could let us have a sequence.
COURT: Okay.
MR VIJAY: I'm
calling Fred Wong, followed by Chasko. These
two so far are
outside.
COURT: Would you
have them ready this afternoon?
MR VIJAY: Yes,
your Honour they are all on standby.
COURT: That's not
giving them a sequence, if you are going
to work on the
basis of who comes first. I just don't
want any delay
in the trial, so we must have the
witnesses.
MR VIJAY: The
next witness is here.
COURT: Yes, but
this afternoon too, we don't want to wait
for witnesses
to arrive.
MR VIJAY: No,
there won't be any delay in witnesses.
Your
Honour, the next witness is Wong Liang Wei. He
is known as
Frederick Wong. His affidavit is in
volume 2.
FREDERICK WONG (affirmed)
Examination-in-chief by MR VIJAY
MR VIJAY: You are
Wong Liang Wei, correct?
A. Yes.
Q. And your
address is Block 356B, Admiralty Drive, #13-98
Singapore,
752356?
A. Yes.
Q. What's your
occupation?
A. I'm a facility
manager with Marvell Asia Pte Ltd.
Q. Can I refer
you to your affidavit, that's in the
plaintiff's
bundle of affidavits, volume 2.
Can you
confirm that the contents of your affidavit
are true and
correct?
A. Yes.
MR VIJAY: That's
all, your Honour.
Cross-examination by MR TAN
MR TAN: Good
afternoon, Mr Wong. My name is Eugene Tan and
I will be
taking you through cross examination of your
evidence.
Mr Wong,
can you tell us how many years of
experience do
you have in the construction industry?
A. Construction
industry -- zero.
Q. Zero years.
Okay. Mr Wong, when you were first
approached by
The Pump Room for The Pump Room project,
this was in
August 2006, correct?
A. Yes.
Q. And one of the
first things you were approached for was
for technical
expertise in the micro-piling of the
project, is
that correct?
A. Yes.
Q. And are you
telling the court that, prior to this, you
had zero years
of construction experience?
A. I have ten
years' experience in facility management,
acting as
owner, acting as client, but not purely on
construction.
It's a different discipline.
Q. But you have
some construction experience, isn't it,
prior to The
Pump Room project? That's all I want to
find out.
To make it
simple, for you to be able to advise on
the technical
matters, you must have had some
experience?
A. Yes.
Q. And that's ten
years of experience prior to The Pump
Room?
A. Yes.
Q. Thank you.
When you were first approached in August
2006, and
before you were engaged for the project, you
asked for a
copy of Poole Associates' contract, isn't
that correct?
A. Yes.
Q. And the reason
you asked for a copy of Poole Associates'
contract was
because you wanted to draft C&P's contract
for the
project and you wanted to avoid duplicity in the
works, am I
correct?
A. No.
Q. So why did you
ask for a copy of Poole Associates'
contract, Mr
Wong?
A. I asked for
all the available documents as at that point
in time as
before I'm being formally engaged, I was
telling the
client that let me decide whether do you
really need to
engage someone or I can just give you
some advice
from an owner's perspective and from my
experience
because initially contact wasn't -- was
a very formal
engagement.
Q. Okay. Can I
ask you to take a look at Mr Shaharin Koh's
affidavit of
evidence-in-chief. That's in volume 2 of
the same
bundle that you are looking at.
Do you see
the last tab, just before Paul Crispin
Casimir, there
is a tab, Shaharin Koh.
A. Yes.
Q. Can you turn
to page 4 of that affidavit of
evidence-in-chief. Let's take a look at
paragraph 10 of
Mr Koh
affidavit. He says there:
"We left
it to Fred Wong to propose his terms and
fees. He
asked for a copy of Ed Poole's contract so
that, when he
crafted his own contract, there will not
be any
duplicity."
Based on
what you just told us, Mr Wong, what Mr Koh
says here at
paragraph 10 is incorrect -- yes?
A. Yes.
Q. Thank you.
When you went through Poole Associates'
contract, did
you review it carefully?
A. Yes.
Q. And why did
you review it carefully?
A. Helping the
client at that point of time to do just
a simple rough
assessment, so all the contracts they
have was shown
to me by Mr Shaharin at that point of
time, which I
would just give him -- I run through with
him together
and I advised him according to what is this
about, what is
that about.
Q. Would I be
correct to say that, in running through all
the various
documents in the project, including Poole
Associates'
contract, you wanted to determine each
party's scope
of works?
A. No, not to
determine, just to understand.
Q. Did you need
to understand the scope of works before you
drafted your
own contract or rather C&P's own contract?
A. I need to have
a clearer picture before I can say how
can I
contribute.
Q. Okay. Having
this clear picture of how to contribute,
you then
drafted C&P's contract -- yes?
A. Yes.
Q. Did you take
care when drafting C&P's contract to avoid
any overlap in
the scope of works with the other
consultants?
A. Yes.
Q. Thank you.
Let's go back a little bit earlier to what
you say, you
reviewed Poole Associates' contract
carefully in
order to understand the situation.
Can you
turn to page 118 of Mr William Graham's
affidavit of
evidence-in-chief. That is found in
volume 1 of
the affidavits of evidence-in-chief. It has
a red spine
with one yellow tab. Go to page 118.
It has the
headline there "Stage 1 programming"?
A. Yes.
Q. Do you see the
first line there:
"Poole
Associates Pte Ltd will meet with the
clients'
project manager to establish administrative
procedures
..."
Did you
see this clause when you were reviewing
Poole
Associates' contract before you drafted C&P's
contract?
A. Yes, I believe
so.
Q. So it was very
clear to you from the beginning that
Poole
Associates were not the project manager for the
project, am I
correct to say that?
A. No.
Q. Did you ask
the client, i.e. The Pump Room, who Poole
Associates
were supposed to meet, if they were supposed
to meet the
client's project manager?
Maybe
that's rather inelegant, the way I phrased it.
Did you
ask the employers who their project manager
was when you
saw this clause?
A. Yes, I do.
Q. And what did
they tell you?
A. The person
heading for the overall project, as it says,
that the whole
event was a collective effort by the
directors.
Q. It was a
collective effort by the directors, correct?
A. For the whole
event.
Q. For the whole
event, thank you.
So when
they told you this, in the context of this
clause, did
you understand, therefore, that the project
managers were
the directors as a collective effort?
A. Sorry, can you
repeat the question?
Q. You know when
you asked the employers who the project
manager was,
and this is to recap what you just said,
their answer
to you was that it was a collective effort
by all the
directors, correct?
A. Yes.
Q. And,
therefore, in the context of this clause, did
you
understand
"project manager" to be referring to all the
directors of
the company?
A. Yes.
Q. Thank you.
Let's move on then. When you came on board
in August
2006, only the demolition works had been
carried out in
the project, am I correct to say that,
meaning that
the actual fitting out, the M&E works, the
structural
works -- no works had begun on that yet?
A. I can't
confirm that.
Q. But one of the
first things that you did when you came
on board was
to meet up with the various consultants to
understand the
project, correct?
A. Yes.
Q. And one of
your roles in understanding the project was
to establish
timelines for the completion of the
project, am I
correct to say that?
A. No.
Q. Okay. Let's
turn to the 1st defendant's bundle of
documents,
that is before you. It's beige-coloured and
blue spined.
Do you see
that, page 1, Mr Wong? Page 1 is an
email which
you have sent to RSP and copied to Shaharin
Koh, and Clark
Martin.
In that
email, you refer to a meeting on the same
day of 28
August 2006. Who are the parties at this
meeting?
A. The meeting
with RSP is between myself, Mr Sunny Wong
and Lau Yoke
Foong.
Q. And you
confirm that Mr Ed Poole from Poole Associates
was not at
this meeting?
A. Yes.
Q. "Yes" meaning
he was not at the meeting, right?
A. He's not at
the meeting.
Q. And during
this meeting, if you look at paragraph 2 of
your email,
you all discuss and agree to complete, or to
try and
complete, the project within the timeline stated
at paragraph
2, yes: The Highlander, 1 October; The
Pump Room, 1
November; the microbrewery, 1 December?
A. That was a
proposal by the RSP architect and structural
engineers on
the possible timeline, and they agreed that
these are the
dates that the things are -- very much
would happen.
Q. Am I correct
that, subsequent to this meeting, you then
draw up a
works programme -- I will make life easier,
why don't you
look at page 7 of the same bundle, there
is a Pump Room
programme there.
Was this
done by you?
A. Yes.
Q. And in
determining the proposed completion date of the
project and
drawing out this programme, can you confirm
also you never
consulted with Poole Associates?
A. Yes, there
isn't a need to --
COURT: What do
you mean by "yes"? Did you consult them or
did you not?
MR TAN: I think
he said, "Yes, there wasn't a need to", so
meaning that
you did not consult them?
A. They were not
consulted.
Q. Because, as
you said, there was no need to?
A. Yes, in my
opinion.
Q. Because Poole
Associates were not the project manager,
right?
A. No, they are
the project managers.
Q. Well, if they
are the project manager, as you say,
Mr Wong, or
you claim, and not the collective efforts of
the directors,
don't you think that you should have
consulted the
project manager before you agreed on
timelines?
A. Yes, but I was
told that there was no feedback from the
project
managers and I'm being tasked by my client,
okay, to know
more and advise them.
Q. What I have
done, Mr Wong, is, based on the documents
that The Pump
Room disclosed just before the trial,
between RSP
and The Pump Room, I have gone through
these, I have
extracted emails between you and RSP, they
are in tab 1
of that bundle, pages 1 to 32.
All I need
you to confirm is, during this
correspondence
with RSP, you never thought it necessary
to copy Poole
Associates in these emails -- you can go
through it.
Your
Honour, Mr Sreenivasan has suggested perhaps
what we could
do now is to take a break, let the witness
go through the
documents and he can come back and
confirm this
after lunch. Would that be fine with your
Honour?
COURT: All right,
yes.
MR TAN: In that
case, your Honour, shall we resume at 2.15?
COURT: All right.
(12.47 pm)
(The luncheon adjournment)
(2.30 pm)
MR TAN: Mr Wong.
A. Yes.
Q. Over the lunch
break that we had did, you discuss your
evidence with
anyone?
A. (Pause). Can
you be more elaborate? What evidence?
Q. Did you
discuss your evidence that you gave just before
lunch with
anyone over the lunch break?
A. No.
Q. We'll move
on. Before lunch, I asked you to take a look
at the
documents at tab 1. Have you gone through that?
A. Yes.
Q. In all these
emails, you never copied Poole Associates?
A. Yes.
Q. So Poole
Associates were not involved in this process?
A. Yes.
Q. And they were
not involved in this process of
establishing
timelines because you didn't think it was
appropriate
for them to be involved?
A. No.
Q. Okay. You did
not copy them in because, as you said,
you felt it
was not necessary to do so?
A. No, it's more
on the face of timeline.
Q. Sorry, can you
repeat that?
A. It's more on
the face of the definition of timeline.
There's lot of
timelines involved in the whole project
so if you can
be more specific I will be able to answer
you more
accurately.
Q. Okay, let's
look at page 7 of the 1st defendant's bundle
of documents.
That is a programme of works, yes?
A. No. If I'm
allowed to elaborate more --
Q. Yes, what is
this, then, at page 7?
A. There is an
indication of statutory approvals. It is on
documentation,
nothing to do with the actual work
schedule.
It's what's the timeline for you to estimate,
submit and get
approval in Singapore.
Q. Okay. And am
I correct to say that obtaining approval
is necessary
before construction works can begin?
A. Yes.
Q. So this
programme would have an impact on the completion
of the
project; yes?
A. Yes.
Q. And you felt
you didn't have to involve Poole Associates
in this
programme, yes?
A. No, it's
indication from the client.
COURT: What did
you say?
A. I said it's
not me not to involve Poole Associates; it's
more an
indication of the clients specifically telling
me what's to
assist them on which is on approvals.
COURT: Answer his
question.
A. Do you mind
repeating the question again?
COURT: Can you
repeat your question.
MR TAN: Yes, your
Honour.
You felt
there was no need to involve
Poole
Associates in this programme?
A. Yes.
Q. Thank you.
COURT: Why?
A. Because the
clients asked me to -- asked me specifically
on submission
approval, so I just work on that portion.
MR TAN: The
client, did they give you instructions not to
consult Poole
Associates?
A. No. My
instruction was direct from the client to give
them more
information on the submission approval
process, which
is what I did exactly on this chart,
a clear
elaboration to them what would be the estimated
timeline. All
the correspondence was between me and the
clients. I am
consulting to the client, so I don't know
how I need to
phrase that.
COURT: Can you
find out what is his exact position, then,
he doesn't
want to consult Poole Associates and he's
doing it on
his own? What is he trying to do?
I am
asking Mr Tan.
Can you
elicit it from him? What is his role? No
use talking
about all this; what is his role?
MR TAN: You have
heard his Honour. What is your role in
the project?
A. I'm a
consultant to the client.
Q. And what do
you advise them on?
A. What would be
a normal case of A&A projects and what are
the dos and
don'ts as a client.
Q. I think it's
easier -- let's look at your contract.
Page 9 of your
affidavit of evidence-in-chief.
Your job
scope is spelled out at 2.0 all the way to
2.4 of the
contract.
A. Yes.
Q. Your Honour,
do you have that page?
COURT: What
volume is it?
MR TAN: It's
volume 2 of the plaintiff's bundle of
affidavits of
evidence-in-chief, and his affidavit is on
the fifth tab.
COURT: What page
are you looking at?
MR TAN: Page 9,
your Honour, that is where his contract is
exhibited.
I want to
move things along, so I am not going to
take you
through every single job description here.
Could you just
confirm that you carried out everything
listed in 2.0
to 2.4?
A. No.
Q. But you
contractually undertook to do all of these; yes?
A. Yes, my
contract is to advise.
COURT: What did
you do then? He's asking you whether you
did everything
in 2.1 and you said no. Then what did
you do and
what did you not do? Can we move along
faster?
A. Okay, I
understand.
COURT: He asked
you whether you did all the things in 2.1,
the job
scope. You said no. Can you please explain
yourself?
A. What I have on
the scope is everything that I can offer
to the
client. If certain of the items is not called
upon then I
cannot say I have fulfilled the whole
contract. For
example, 2.3.5.
COURT: What you
are saying is you offered to do all this
but you didn't
do it?
A. I was not
called upon to do it.
COURT: So can you
tell us, so that we can move along?
MR TAN: Can you
identify which of these you didn't do, from
2.0 to 2.4.5?
Which of these did you not do?
A. 2.1.7.
Q. Okay. What
else?
A. 2.1.10.
Q. Some more?
A. 2.3.5, 2.3.6,
and the whole of 2.4.
COURT: All of
2.4?
A. Yes.
COURT: Okay,
carry on.
MR TAN: Let's
move on to the review of quotations, shall
we?
You
confirm during the course of the projects you
were given
quotations by Mason Works to review?
A. Yes.
Q. And this would
fall under 2.3.2 of your contract,
wouldn't it?
A. Yes.
Q. So when these
quotations came in, what did you do?
A. The quotation
was passed on to me by Mr Shaharin where
I validated
the work to explain to them in detail in the
area they can
understand.
COURT: He asked
you what did you do when the quotations
came to you.
A. I look at
them.
COURT: Yes, and
then? What else do you do after looking at
them?
A. He explained
it to the clients.
MR TAN: Am I
correct to say that, without your approval,
Shaharin or
The Pump Room would not sign these
quotations?
A. No.
Q. So do you know
of any instance where they have signed
the quotation
without first consulting you?
A. Not any I know
of.
Q. In fact, isn't
it true, Mr Wong, that you had specific
instructions
to endorse the works before Shaharin would
sign the
quotation?
Let me
make it easier for you. Why don't you look
at Pauline Han
Lin Jee's affidavit of evidence in chief,
volume 2, tab
4, page 16?
It is an
email from Pauline Graham. If you look at
paragraph 2 --
so my question to you is this. You must
first endorse
the words in the quotation before Shaharin
would sign the
quotation; yes? That was the practice
that was set
down?
A. No, not
exactly. This is instruction from the client.
Q. Yes, the
instruction from the client was that you were
to endorse the
works before Shaharin would sign the
quotation;
yes?
A. Yes.
COURT: Why do you
say "not exactly", then?
A. Because I did
reflect to the kind of things -- there are
certain things
beyond my limit on a verbal basis
COURT: That was
not his question. His question was whether
it is true to
say that unless you endorsed the work they
can't move?
A. Sorry, your
Honour, I don't really understand whether
it's actually
happening or what I was being told.
COURT: Mr Wong,
we would move faster --
A. I understand.
COURT: -- if you
do understand the questions.
A. Yes, your
Honour.
COURT: So what is
your clear answer now? Correct, isn't
it? Or is it
not correct?
MR TAN: Do you
want me to repeat the question?
A. Yes.
Q. It was the
practice for you to endorse the works in the
quotation
before Shaharin would sign the quotation, yes?
A. Yes.
Q. And before you
endorsed the works, Mr Wong, you would
review the
quotation diligently and competently; yes?
A. Yes.
Q. And in
carrying out your duties and reviewing you must
have reviewed
the cost as well, didn't you? Did you
look at the
pricing in the quotation when you endorsed
the works?
A. No.
Q. So if the
quotation was for 1 million dollars, you would
still endorse
it?
A. I endorse the
quotation, not based on the pricing.
Q. No, my
question to you is: if a quotation was given to
you by Mason
Works and you saw 1 million dollars, would
you highlight
it to The Pump Room that something was
wrong?
A. No.
COURT: Are you
sure? He's asking you about a situation
where it's
obviously out of line?
A. Sorry, your
Honour --
MR TAN: Do you
want me to repeat that question again?
A. Yes, please.
Q. If you
received a quotation from Mason Works for
1 million
dollars, would you highlight it to The Pump
Room that
something was wrong with the quotation?
A. No.
COURT: To be fair
to him, you have to give a figure, if
it's 1
million, when actually it's worth how much.
MR TAN: Fair
enough, I will rephrase the question.
If you
received a quotation for 1 million dollars
for, say, a
simple installation of a fan, would you
highlight this
to the client?
A. No.
Q. You would
still endorse the works, even though -- sorry,
let me just
rephrase that.
COURT: What was
the illustration you gave, the installation
of what?
MR TAN: The
installation of a fan, your Honour.
COURT: Did you
appreciate the question that he gave you?
A. I hear the
question and it's something that I have not
looked into it
because the whole quotation consists of
a lot of
things. Pricing was something that I was not
looking into.
I don't have the expertise, your Honour,
so I would not
know.
COURT: Can you
tell me what you were looking at?
A. The
description of the work and also the
understanding
the work so
that I can relate it to the client.
COURT: But he is
asking you a simple question. Supposing
we are talking
about the installation of a fan, and
there is a
charge of 1 million dollars, you are saying
you will not
even tell your client, "Hey, something is
funny here".
A. I missed out
the fan; I thought he was asking about the
whole cost.
Do you
mind repeating the question?
MR TAN: If you
received a quotation from Mason Works for
the
installation of a fan and there was a price of
1 million
dollars next to that, would you highlight that
to The Pump
Room?
A. Yes.
Q. Yes?
COURT: You must
have heard, because I asked him to give an
illustration.
A. I am sorry,
your Honour.
COURT: To be fair
to you, and yet you said "no" so
vehemently.
A. Sorry, your
Honour.
MR TAN: When you
were reviewing these quotations, Mr Wong,
were you given
instructions by The Pump Room to liaise
with Poole
Associates?
A. No.
Q. Let's move
on. In your affidavit of evidence-in-chief,
you say that
you left the project in October 2006?
A. Yes.
Q. And after you
left, Melvin Lim from the same company
took over your
roles and responsibilities in the
project; am I
correct?
A. No.
Q. No? Look at
your affidavit, the last page, page 7,
paragraph 19,
do you see there:
"After
[you] had left I heard from Melvin Lim from
C&P Contract
Services that the 2nd defendant were
claiming that
they had bought steel and had
prefabricated
the steel materials. They wanted to
charge the
plaintiff for the cost of the steel."
Doesn't
that suggest that Melvin Lim from C&P was
still involved
in the project or had taken over from
you?
A. No, he has not
taken the consultant role from me.
Q. Are you saying
that after you left C&P had nothing to do
with the
project?
A. C&P was
engaged to do some minor works on the building
itself.
Q. So they were
still involved in the project?
A. Yes.
Q. And who from
C&P was still involved in the project?
A. Mr Melvin Lim.
Q. And when did
their involvement with the project end,
Mr Wong?
A. That one I am
not sure.
Q. Mr Wong, I
want you to take a look at the
2nd
defendant's bundle of documents.
Volume 2,
your Honour.
Can you
turn to page 425? Do you see that?
A. Yes.
Q. It is an email
from you to the 2nd defendant's William
Lee on 31
January 2007?
A. Yes.
Q. Am I correct
to say that your involvement with the
project did
not end in October but carried on
until January
2007?
A. Yes.
Q. So your
statement that you had left the project
in October
2006 is wrong?
It's a
simple question with a "yes" or "no" answer.
A. Yes.
Q. So in January
31 2007, what you were liaising with
Mr William Lee
was the handling and commissioning of the
project
deliverables, 1. And 2, the costing and
payment, yes?
A. Yes.
Q. So I go back
to your contract again. Bear with me.
2.1.10, page
10 of your affidavit. Earlier you
testified that
2.1.10, you did not carry this out for
the project,
right?
A. Yes.
Q. Now, is that
statement wrong, looking at page 425, your
email of 31
January 2007?
A. (Pause). Yes.
Q. So you did
actually assist The Pump Room in
commissioning
and handing over the project works after
they were
completed, yes?
A. Yes.
Q. And part of
your handing-over duties, as you will see at
page 425, was
looking at costing and payment; yes?
A. Yes.
Q. So you did
look at the costing of the entire projects
works; yes?
A. Yes.
MR TAN: Very
well, your Honour. I'm just going to put my
case and
close.
I'm going
to put my case to you, Mr Wong. You can
just agree or
disagree.
I'm going
to put it to you that Poole Associates
were not the
project managers of The Pump Room, "yes" or
"no"?
A. No.
Q. I am going to
put it to you that C&P Contract Pte Ltd
were the
project managers of The Pump Room; do you agree
or disagree?
A. Disagree.
Q. And I am going
to put it to you that, as project
managers of
The Pump Room, C&P Contracts had a duty to
monitor the
quotations that came from in Mason Works.
Do you agree
or disagree?
A. Disagree.
Q. And lastly I
am going to put it to you that you are now
trying to
blame Poole Associates for not carrying out
your own work,
do you agree or disagree?
A. Disagree.
MR TAN: I have no
further questions, your Honour.
COURT: I have
just one. On what basis are you saying that
Poole
Associates are the project managers?
A. They are the
one in writing that has a contract and has
a sum that is
being paid as project managers.
COURT: Do you
know how to interpret contracts?
A. What I
understand is what is being shown to me by the
clients.
COURT: What ...?
A. What is being
shown to me by the client. They have
a project
manager and my role wasn't a project manager.
COURT: So you do
not know whether they are the project
managers. You
are saying that you were told by your
client?
A. Yes, and from
the documentation.
COURT: All right.
Cross-examination by MR ONG
MR ONG: May it
please your Honour.
Good
afternoon, Mr Wong. My name is Ong Ying Ping.
I'm counsel
for Mason Works, the 2nd defendant in this
action.
I just
have a few short questions for you.
The same
page, 425, the emails that you sent to
Mr William
Lee. So is it correct that you had a meeting
with Mr
William Lee on Saturday, 3 February 2007 at
The Pump Room,
"yes" or "no"?
A. Yes.
Q. Were Mr and
Mrs Graham also present at this meeting?
Yes or no?
A. Yes.
Q. Thank you. At
this meeting, did you go through the
entire cost or
payment summary of Mason Works invoices
to The Pump
Room?
A. Can you repeat
that again?
Q. On that
meeting on 3 February, did you and Mr William
Lee go through
the costs and payment summary of
Mason Works'
bills to The Pump Room?
A. Yes.
Q. Did Mr or Mrs
Graham inform you that they have already
engaged Mr
Crispin to review Mason Works' pricing at
that time?
"Yes" or "no"?
A. No.
Q. Mr William Lee
tells me -- and I'm just asking you to
confirm
whether this is so -- he tells me that you told
him on that
meeting that it was a difficult job you were
doing because
you were not being paid extra; is that
true?
A. No.
Q. You were being
paid --
A. Yes.
Q. -- to attend
that meeting?
A. Sorry, please
repeat -- was I being paid for the job or
paid to attend
the meeting?
Q. Paid to
attend. I mean, you have left the job, by your
testimony?
A. Yes.
Q. So you are
coming back, and basically you weren't going
to be paid for
this coming back, are you?
A. Yes.
Q. You were going
to be paid?
A. I am not going
to paid for this.
MR ONG: Okay.
That's all.
No further
questions, your Honour.
COURT: Yes.
Re-examination.
Re-examination by MR VIJAY
MR VIJAY: You
were asked whether you were looking into
costing, and
you said "yes". Could you clarify what
exactly you
mean by you were looking into costing?
A. Based on 2 --
based on item 2.3.2, after I assist owner
on the overall
project, cost control was the clear
definition and
costing involving that provisions, okay,
for the
project sum. Things like variation order and
retention
amount on how the management of the whole cost
in the
project.
Q. Can you put it
in just simple language what exactly you
did?
A. More on --
Q. Without the
technical terms.
A. More on the
overall cost control.
Q. How do you do
that?
A. Knowing what
are the project progression, okay, at which
point of time,
how do you identify what are the cost
involvements.
Q. Okay, you say
you looked into costing and at the same
time you said
you don't look into pricing. Can you
clarify what
you mean by this?
A. When it comes
to costing, it's that the client, let's
say, has a
budget of, let's say, 600,000 dollars to do
the project;
that he needs to understand that his total
cost,
inclusive of all items, is this amount.
Whereas,
the pricing I
would not be able to determine whether
this price is
the right price or is it right or
so-called
adequate to the job, being identification of
the
quantifying of the pricing.
Q. Mr Wong, you
said earlier on you left the job in October
2006 -- around
October 2006?
A. Yes.
Q. Then you said
that you were back doing something on
3 February
2007, and just now you were asked that you
left the job
and you came back and you were sort of
complaining
that it was a difficult job and so on.
Could you
explain or clarify these answers?
A. Officially, I
left the job in October 2008, because my
other
engagement has changed I need to report to my
next
job early.
But subsequently, because of the
relationship I
have with the client, on off he calls me
to recall
events or ask me for any advice, I will
so-called
give. And on comes to the day in February,
okay, I did
arrange a meeting on request of the client
with Mason
Works, and I was trying to tell William that,
"It's a
difficult job; let's get it over with. I am not
being paid but
yet I am still willing to contribute to
close the
job".
MR VIJAY: I have
no other questions.
Your
Honour, can the witness have permission to
leave?
COURT: Yes, you
are discharged.
(The witness withdrew)
Who is
next?
MR VIJAY: This is
Alex Chasko. Alex David Chasko.
ALEX DAVID CHASKO (sworn)
Examination-in-chief by MR VIJAY
MR VIJAY: Your
name is Alex David Chasko?
A. Yes.
Q. And your
address? Can you give us your latest address?
Your
Honour, this witness is no longer in Singapore.
Can you
give us your present address, please?
A. My present
address is 146 Rosemount in Thurles, County
Tipperary,
Ireland.
Q. Your
occupation?
A. A brewer.
Q. Can I refer
you to your affidavit?
A. Yes.
Q. Can you
confirm that the contents of your affidavit are
true and
correct?
A. Yes, they are
true.
MR VIJAY: That's
all, your Honour.
Cross-examination by MR SREENIVASAN
MR SREENIVASAN:
May it please your Honour, I will be
conducting the
cross-examination on behalf of the
1st defendant.
Now, Mr
Chasko, if you look at your affidavit and if
you turn to
the second page you stated that you were
appointed as
the head Brewer and came to Singapore for
an interview
in July 2006; am I right?
A. Yes.
Q. And as far as
this interview was concerned, you were
interviewed by
Mr Graham; am I right?
A. Yes.
Q. And as a
brewer, in the course of your training you
would have
been trained in the type of equipment that's
needed in
brewing beer?
A. Well, yes, my
training --
Q. Both the
equipment and the process?
A. Yes.
Q. And therefore
you would have had a say in the type of
equipment that
should be acquired?
A. No.
Q. Now, you were
recruited to be the head brewer; am I
right?
A. Yes.
Q. So the type
and quality of beer would have been
something you
would be responsible for; am I right?
A. Yes.
Q. And of course
it's good to have the right equipment to
make good
beer?
A. Yes.
Q. Who was
responsible for acquiring the brewery equipment
then?
A. That was done
before I was hired on to the project.
Q. But do you
know who did it?
A. My --
actually, I don't.
Q. It was done
before you came in?
A. Yes.
Q. It was
something you were not involved in?
A. Not at all.
Q. And you've got
no idea about it?
A. Well, I could
speculate but it would be purely
speculation.
Q. In fact it
would be speculation to talk about things
that happened
before you came on board; am I right?
A. Yes.
Q. It would be
speculation to form views on what happened
before you
came on board?
A. Yes.
Q. In fact, it
would be guesswork, gossip, hearsay?
A. Yes. For me
to reply on that, yes.
Q. So, if you
look at what happened before you joined
in September
2006, when you came to Singapore to start
work, previous
events would be guesswork, gossip and
hearsay; am I
right?
A. No.
Q. Paragraph 3:
"After my
appointment, I left for Scotland and
returned in
August 2006."
A. Yes.
Q. And you were
shocked to see nothing much had happened?
A. Yes, since
July, yes.
Q. As the
intended head brewer, you would have been
concerned
about the type of equipment that was coming
in; am I
right?
A. Yes.
Q. You would have
been concerned whether proper
specifications
were being met for the equipment?
A. Yes.
Q. I mean, that's
what you're going to use to make the
beer?
A. Yes.
Q. And while the
workman should not blame his tools if, you
had horrible
equipment the beer would be horrible,
however
talented you are?
A. Was there a
question?
Q. Yes.
A. And the
question was ...?
Q. If the
equipment was horrible, the beer would be
horrible,
however talented you were?
A. No, I would
disagree with that, but that's another
issue.
Q. So weren't you
interested in finding out how the
equipment was
being acquired?
A. Was I
interested in ...? Like I said, that decision
was
made before I
--
Q. I know, but
were you interested in finding out how it
was being
done?
A. Uh, yeah.
Q. Were you
interested in finding out who the supplier was?
A. Yes.
Q. Were you
interested in finding out who was setting the
specifications
for the brewery equipment?
A. Yes.
Q. So who was?
A. By the
directors of The Pump Room.
Q. Who? Which
director in particular?
A. My belief,
although I don't know directly, is that Chris
Shelley --
Q. And what is
Chris Shelley's expertise in the brewing of
beer?
A. Chris Shelley
has a professional history with a company
called APV.
Q. And what does
that stand for?
A. I believe it
used to stand for Aluminium Pressure
Vessels, but I
don't think it stands for anything any
more.
Q. Chris Shelley
is now the CEO of a dairy farm in
New Zealand,
am I right?
A. Again, I
wouldn't know.
Q. Well, you can
take it from me. And while beer is
mother's milk
to some of us, the running of a dairy farm
and running a
brewery is quite different, isn't it?
A. Well, I have
never run a dairy, so I couldn't say.
Q. Now, would you
agree with me that you ought to know, you
ought to have
found out what kind of equipment you were
getting?
A. That I ought
to have?
Q. Yes.
A. No, I wouldn't
agree with you.
Q. The vats that
were used for the brewery --
A. Yes.
Q. -- were dairy
vats; am I right?
A. No.
Q. They were
custom-made brewery vats?
A. Yes.
Q. Okay. You met
Ed Poole in July 2006; am I right?
A. Yes.
Q. And you were
told that The Pump Room was to have a soft
opening in
October 2006?
A. Yes.
Q. That is why
you were surprised when you came back; am I
right?
A. Yes, I thought
that there would be more progress made,
yes.
Q. Can you turn
to page 3, paragraph 7; you met Ed Poole
socially?
A. Yes.
Q. On one
occasion there was a pub at Clarke Quay called
the Crazy
Elephant; am I right?
A. Yes.
Q. In the next
paragraph you say:
"Ed Poole
told us that he had been given
an opportunity
to be a shareholder"; am I right?
A. Yes.
Q. If we go up
one paragraph:
"Ed Poole
said he was going to use the money to pay
his mortgage";
am I right?
A. That's what he
had said at the time, yes.
Q. Let's get the
sequence right now.
A. Okay.
Q. When Ed Poole
said he was going to use the money to pay
the mortgage,
it was in the context of the offer made to
him to be a
shareholder; am I right?
Let me
replay the conversation, it might trigger
your memory.
You all were talking about him being
a shareholder
and he said, "Heck, no, I'm going to pay
my money to
pay the mortgage. The pubs are a risky
business"; am
I right?
A. He didn't say
those exact words but, in general, yes,
the
conversation was with regards to Ed being
offered an
ability to
come into The Pump Room and that he was going
to pass on
that, and that he would take the money that
he was making
from The Pump Room and pay off his
mortgage, yes.
Q. That's right.
But if you read paragraph 7 of your
affidavit --
read it carefully, take your time -- the
first two
paragraphs, it doesn't quite give you that
meaning, does
it, Mr Chasko?
A. That's what
I'm reading.
Q. Does it give
the same meaning?
A. Yes.
Q. You think it
does?
A. Yes.
Q. Okay. You
see, Mr Chasko, I'm going to submit at the
end of this
case -- or rather Mr Tan will -- that you
have not been
honest because these two paragraphs give
a different
meaning, so I'm giving you a chance to look
at these two
paragraphs.
A. I don't see
what you're referring to.
Q. Okay, no
problem, let's move on. Turn to page 4.
A. Yes.
Q. The second
paragraph of paragraph 9.
A. Yes.
Q. "As time went
on, it became clear to me that Ed Poole
did not know
much about setting up or designing
a
microbrewery."
You are
referring to the setting up of
a
microbrewery; are you talking about the setting
up of
the equipment,
the piping, the pumps, or are you talking
about the
aesthetics, or what?
A. Both.
Q. Do you agree
that to understand the setting up of the
equipment of a
microbrewery, you need some specialist
knowledge?
A. Yes.
Q. And to design
a microbrewery, you also need some
specialist
knowledge?
A. Yes.
Q. Yesterday --
and I am sure my learned friend Mr Vijay
will object if
I have my facts wrong -- Mr Graham told
us that Mr
Poole's scope of work did not include the
microbrewery
equipment, were you aware of that?
A. No.
Q. And if his
scope of work did not include setting up the
microbrewery
equipment, then it doesn't matter whether
he knew
anything about it or not?
A. I'm sorry,
you're asking --
Q. You made the
comment, as if it's a point, that Ed Poole
didn't know
anything about it, but wasn't his job, then
it doesn't
matter whether he knew anything --
A. If it wasn't
his job, then it wouldn't matter, yes.
Q. Let's move on.
A. All right.
Q. Page 5, on the
top of the paragraph, you say that he had
no idea about
the loading required for such a brewery to
be installed,
can you see that?
A. Yes.
Q. Do you agree
that the loading factor comes from the
weight of the
equipment?
A. Yes.
Q. It comes from
the size of the equipment?
A. Yes.
Q. And, if you
look at loading, it's the weight over the
cross-section,
if you are talking about the vats; am I
right?
A. Over the area
of the floor, yes.
Q. And then it
would also depend on which part of the floor
it's put at;
am I right?
A. Yes.
Q. So if I put a
vat directly above a beam, it might be
able to take
the load, while if I put the vat in the
middle of the
floor, with no beam, it might not be able
to take the
load?
A. I'm not a
structural engineer.
Q. Exactly. Was
Ed Poole a structural engineer?
A. No.
Q. Do you agree
that RSP Architects were the structural
engineers for
this project?
A. Again, my
scope of work was related to brewing beer.
COURT: But you
were able to comment on other people's
works, so can
you please answer the question.
A. Okay, so my
understanding -- (unclear -- simultaneous
speakers) --
MR SRINEEVASAN:
-- (unclear -- simultaneous speakers) --
RSP Architects
the structural engineers of the project?
A. Yes.
Q. We know about
micro-piling, am I right?
A. Do I know
about micro-piling?
Q. There was
micro-piling involved in this project?
A. Yes, there was
micro-piling involved in the project --
Q. In fact there
were discussions on how to avoid the
micro-piling
if possible; am I right?
A. Yes.
Q. Fred Wong was
brought in as part of those discussions?
A. Fred Wong was
involved in those discussions, yes.
Q. And the reason
to try and avoid the micro-piling was to
shorten the
time to get the brewery ready?
A. There were
sub-reasons --
Q. And to save
cost, two reasons -- faster, cheaper?
A. Yes.
Q. But, in the
end, the structural engineers required
micro-piling
to be done; am I right?
A. Yes.
Q. And that
delayed the project?
A. Yes.
Q. Now, of
course, the discussions going on on whether
micro-piling
was or was not needed included Mr Fred
Wong; am I
right?
A. Yes, I would
imagine that they did.
Q. And we have
heard evidence that Fred Wong came into the
picture at the
end of August; am I right?
A. Around that
time, yes.
Q. So the
discussions must have been after that; am I
right?
A. There were
discussions going on before August and then
after.
Q. And it
continued after?
A. Yes.
Q. The decision
to split the restaurant works from the
brewery works
was made in September 2006; am I right?
A. I wouldn't
dispute that fact.
Q. And, by that
time, it was found that you can't avoid
micro-piling;
am I right?
A. There was a
decision made to micro-pile, yes.
Q. So, if
micro-piling was not necessary, there would be
no
need to split
the two; am I right?
A. If
micro-piling wasn't necessary, there wouldn't be
a need to --
Q. To split the
brewery works away from the restaurant
works; am I
right?
A. Well --
Q. Or you don't
know?
A. Yeah, I don't
know.
Q. So let's stick
to brewing beer.
A. Okay.
Q. Can you turn
to page 5 of your affidavit. You have
a long part on
the 8 November meeting?
A. Yes.
Q. Was Ed Poole
at that meeting?
A. No.
Q. Was anyone
from Poole Associates at that meeting?
A. No.
Q. That meeting
had detailed discussions about Mason Works'
costings; am I
right?
A. No, it didn't
have detailed discussions.
Q. That was a
meeting where it was decided to have Crispin
to review the
cost?
A. Yes.
Q. That was also
the meeting where Mr Graham was upset and
concerned
about the project budget?
A. Yes.
Q. That was the
meeting where Mr Graham was concerned when
the whole
project would be completed?
A. Yes.
Q. If there was
anybody responsible for ensuring the
project was
done on time and on budget, that was a very
important
meeting?
A. Yes.
Q. Did Graham
call Ed Poole or anybody from his company?
A. I wouldn't
know.
Q. Did you?
A. Did I call Ed
Poole? No.
Q. In your
presence, did Mrs Graham call Ed Poole or
anybody from
his company?
A. Not in my
presence, no.
MR SRINEEVASAN:
No further questions, your Honour.
COURT: Thank you.
Cross-examination by MR ONG
MR ONG: Good
afternoon, Mr Chasko. My name is Ong Ying
Ping. I am
counsel for Mason Works. I will just be
taking you
through this same part of your affidavit at
page 6, the
last paragraph. Can we just let me just
quickly read
it for you at the first line:
"William
Lee was visually upset. He assured William
Graham and
Pauline that his prices were fair and he was
not trying to
cheat them. He kept reassuring them of
the same.
"Finally,
William Graham suggested that they would
like the whole
project costing to be reviewed by an
independent
person. William Lee was agreeable to this.
William Graham
suggested appointing one Crispin Casimir.
William Lee
was quite happy to hear Crispin Casimir's
name and said
he has worked with him before, he was
agreeable to
having Crispin Casimir review the costs for
the whole
project and once again assured William Graham
and Pauline
that the prices were fair.
"William
Graham then wrote something to that effect
in the
quotation."
Is that
your testimony?
A. That's what my
affidavit says, yes.
Q. Now, Mr
Chasko, can you turn to Mr William Graham's
affidavit.
A. I don't know
where that would be.
Q. The thick red
bundle. Can you turn to pages 176 and
177.
A. Yes.
Q. Let me take
you to the handwritten portions on the
bottom
left-hand corner.
A. Of which
page? Both pages?
Q. Yes, both
pages, but let me start with 176 first.
A. Okay.
Q. Is this the
"something written to that effect by
Mr William
Graham"?
A. Yes.
Q. Let's read it:
"Amount to
be reviewed and confirmed as reasonable
by independent
consultants (Crispin). Same retention as
main
contract. Otherwise, Crispin to recommend."
Is that
what you read?
A. That's what I
read here, yes.
Q. Now, the words
"same retention as main contract" would
suggest that
the pricing review by the independent
person applies
only to this quotation, doesn't it, "the
same
retention"?
A. I couldn't
speculate as to the legal implications of
those words.
I mean, I am not an expert.
Q. That's fine,
but you are very sure that we're talking
about the
whole project?
A. Yes.
Q. You see, you
are very sure, when you don't really know,
do you?
A. No, I --
Q. You are very
sure it's the whole project?
A. I am very sure
that the discussion that I heard in the
meeting was
with reference to the whole project.
Q. All right.
Let me turn to the next page, which
Mr Graham
assures us was written in the space of less
than 15
minutes.
A. Mm-hmm.
Q. This is the
same contract, the same handwritten part.
Let's look at
the bottom left-hand corner. Can you read
it for us now?
A. "To be
reviewed and approved as reasonable by qualified
engineer", and
then in caps there is (Crispin).
Q. What does it
say before "Crispin".
A. "Qualified
engineer".
Q. Turn to the
page before, and see what it says before
"Crispin"?
A. "Independent
consultant".
Q. Not the same,
is it?
A. Well, they are
obviously different words, yes.
Q. So your boss
made a mistake, didn't he?
A. I couldn't say
if he had made a mistake or not.
Q. Are those few
words the same?
A. No, those
words are not the same.
Q. It stands to
reason, your boss made a mistake?
A. Like I said, I
couldn't say that he made a mistake.
Q. You see, you
can't be sure when he made a mistake, but
you are really
sure you are talking about reviewing the
whole project.
A. I am really
sure that the conversation that I witnessed
was with
regard to the whole project, yes.
Q. Well, I put it
to you that you are taking a slanted view
of the
evidence. Do you agree?
A. No.
Q. I suggest to
you that your own lack of knowledge of the
effect of
these clauses should lead you to say you don't
really know
the effect of this review. Do you agree?
A. No, I wouldn't
agree with that.
MR ONG: I have no
further questions, your Honour.
MR VIJAY: I have
no re-examination.
COURT: Thank
you. You are discharged.
(The witness withdrew)
COURT: Who is
next?
MR VIJAY:
Shaharin Koh, your Honour.
SHAHARIN ABAS KOH (affirmed)
Examination-in-chief by MR VIJAY
Q. Do you have
your affidavit? You are Shaharin Koh; your
address is
block 132, Clarence Lane, #02-14S Singapore
40132?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. State your
occupation.
A. I'm the
operations manager for Pasta Fresca De Salvatore
Group.
Q. Can I refer
you to your affidavit of evidence-in-chief?
A. This was done
-- I am no longer in the company now so
should I state
--
Q. No, your
present occupation, please, just state your
present
occupation?
A. Present
occupation, I am now the operations manager for
Queen &
Mangosteen Pte Ltd.
Q. Can I refer
you to your affidavit of evidence-in-chief?
Do you confirm
the contents to be true and correct?
A. I do.
MR VIJAY: Thank
you.
Cross-examination by MR TAN
MR TAN: Good
afternoon, Mr Koh. My name is Eugene Tan and
I'm counsel
for the 1st defendant, Poole Associates.
Now, can
we take a look at your affidavit of
evidence-in-chief. That's in volume 2 of the
plaintiff's
bundle of affidavits, the thick red bundle
with tabs by
the side. Volume 2.
A. Yes.
Q. Tab 6.
A. Okay. Which
one, sorry?
Q. Paragraph 10?
A. Page ...?
Q. Page 4.
A. My affidavit?
Q. Yes.
A. Paragraph 10,
yes.
Q. Just leave it
open at that page first.
You were
the general manager for The Pump Room --
A. Yes, sir.
Q. -- from July
2006 to January 2006?
A. Yes, I was --
sorry, January 2007.
Q. Sorry, I stand
corrected, January 2007. And in your CV
you say that
you oversaw the setting up and the planning
of a
microbrewery and restaurant operations --
A. Yes, I did.
Q. -- during that
period of time.
What were
your duties in the project? Can you
identify them?
A. My duties were
to set up the restaurant, ensure that
it's
operationally working, hire the staff, buy in
the
plates, buy in
the sound equipment, help higher the
entertainment
the secure manager, et cetera et cetera.
Q. What about the
construction aspect of it? What did you
do for the
construction aspect?
A. Construction
aspect, I -- as an operator of
a restaurant,
I give in my inputs to ensure that the
restaurant
setup would be running as it is supposed to
be running,
later on when after the construction is
done.
Q. Did you act as
The Pump Room's representative vis-a-vis
the
consultants?
A. Sorry, can I
understand that question again, please?
Q. Did you act as
the owner's representative vis-a-vis the
various
consultants on the project?
A. If -- the
general manager for the project, would be
constituting
as a representative of the company, yes.
Q. Okay. And you
liaised with Fred Wong in August 2006;
yes?
A. Yes.
Q. And the
purpose was to engage him to help out in the
project, yes?
A. Yes.
Q. And prior to
engaging Fred Wong, you gave him a copy of
Poole
Associates' contract; yes?
A. No.
Q. You did not,
okay. Look at paragraph 10 of your
affidavit. Do
you see that?
A. Yes.
Q. "Fred Wong
asked for a copy of Ed Poole's contract so
that when he
drafted his own contract there would not be
any
duplicity."
So before
you received C&P's contract, you gave C&P
a copy of
Poole Associates' contract with The Pump Room?
A. Fred Wong
asked for a copy of the contract, but I don't
remember
giving the copy of the contract to him. He
asked for it
but it wasn't in my capacity to give it to
him.
Q. So you didn't
give him the contract at all?
A. No, as far as
I remember I don't think so.
Q. Let's move on,
then, to C&P's contract, Mr Koh. That
can be found
at page 11. Or maybe stick with the same
bundle. If
you look at the tab, you will see "Wong
Liang Wei"
just above "Shaharin Koh".
A. Yes.
Q. Let's turn to
page 9 of that affidavit. This was
a contract
given to you on 21 August 2006?
A. Yes.
Q. And you signed
the contract on The Pump Room's behalf?
A. Yes.
Q. Before you
signed the contract, did you look through the
terms of the
contract?
A. Yes.
Q. So would you
agree with me that Fred Wong's role was not
merely to
supervise or assist in the technical aspects
of the
project?
A. I disagree.
Q. Let's look at
paragraph 11 of your affidavit. Do you
see that?
Fred Wong -- are you there?
A. Yeah.
Q. "Fred Wong's
role was very clear: he was to assist and
advise the
plaintiff on the technical aspects of the
whole project,
i.e. the micro-piling and the
microbrewery?
A. Yes.
Q. This was not
only his responsibility in the project,
right? Or was
this the only responsibility in the
project?
A. This was his
responsibility in the project.
Q. Was it the
only responsibility -- or was it his only
responsibility?
A. That was
basically the responsibility of the project.
Q. If you look at
the contract at pages 9 to 11, C&P's
contract,
would you agree with me that nowhere in the
contract does
it limit his scope of works only to
micro-piling
and microbrewery?
A. That would be
true.
Q. Sorry?
A. That would be
true.
Q. Your other
responsibilities in the project were to
review the
quotations that came in from the
2nd
defendants, i.e. Mason Works?
A. Not to review
--
Q. Okay, not to
review. Was there a procedure in place for
both Fred Wong
and you to look at the quotations when
they came in
from Mason Works?
A. There was an
instruction from Pauline Graham, which is
another
director, to make sure that whatever that comes
through from
Mason Works, the amount of works or the
cost that's
involved -- the amount of work that's
involved is
actually true to what is actually being
charged to us.
Q. The amount of
...? Sorry, what?
A. The amount of
work is actually true to what is actually
being charged
to us. May I give an example?
Q. I'm going to
ask you the next question. When you talk
about the
amount of work that was correct, what are you
referring to?
A. An example
would be if they were to charge us for
putting up a
brick wall; the brick wall is done, and
yes, the
amount then is correct; they would charge us to
put up a brick
wall and we'd pay for the brick wall
that's being
put up.
Q. No, just to
clarify -- because I think you are talking
about invoices
-- we are talking about before the works
begin, you
would be given a quotation of the works to be
carried out;
yes?
A. Yes.
Q. And before you
sign on the quotation, you would review
the quotation,
yes?
A. I wouldn't say
I reviewed the quotation, because a
review of a
quotation would be to have three or four
other
quotations coming in, then you review the
quotations.
Q. Would you sign
the quotation blindly?
A. No.
Q. So you would
look through the quotation first?
A. Yes.
Q. And before you
signed on the quotations, you had to
ensure that
Fred had endorsed the works there; yes?
A. Yes.
Q. And if he
didn't give his approval, you couldn't sign
the quotation;
yes?
A. It was not to
get Fred Wong's approval; it was to assist
in contract --
he was supposed to assist us and ensure
that the work
is in accordance to all the -- the quoted
prices for the
quoted work is in accordance with what
needs to be
done.
Q. Okay. Mr Koh,
would you sign the quotation if Fred
didn't give
the go-ahead?
A. Yes, would I
still sign it.
Q. Would you
still sign it?
A. Yes.
Q. Okay. Let's
look at Pauline Graham's affidavit.
I brought
Fred Wong through this email so I thought
it would be
fair to bring you through it as well.
Pauline
Graham is in the same volume of affidavits.
If you look at
page 16 of her affidavit, the second
paragraph --
A. Yes.
Q. Let me read it
for you:
"Shah
[that would be referring to you, wouldn't
it?], could
you please look into all the requests here
as stated by
William and to get Fred to endorse his okay
so that we can
get the work started. As is the practice
set out,
unless Fred Wong endorses any works we will not
be able to
approve."
So there
was a practice in which Fred had to endorse
the works
before you would sign the quotation; am I
correct?
A. Yes.
Q. And am I also
correct to say that you wouldn't sign it
unless Fred
Wong gave his okay?
A. Yes.
Q. There are also
instructions from Pauline Graham for you
to monitor the
cost. If you look at the last sentence
of that
paragraph:
"Given
that quotations are in bits and pieces, I
would caution
you to make sure that they are properly
monitored from
a cost point of view."
Do you see
that?
A. Yes.
Q. So there were
actually instructions from Pauline Graham
to ask you to
monitor the quotations on the costing?
A. Yes.
MR TAN: Thank
you.
His answer
was yes, your Honour.
COURT: Yes.
MR TAN: Were you
given instructions at any point in time to
refer to Poole
Associates for the quotations?
A. No.
Q. And you would
sign the quotations without consulting
Poole
Associates; right?
A. Yes.
Q. Thank you. So
would I be correct to say that at no
point did you
all rely on Poole Associates for the
pricing of the
works? You didn't refer to him, right?
A. Well, because
--
Q. No, you can
answer my question first. At no point did
you all rely
on Poole Associates for the pricing of the
quotation;
yes?
A. I would say
yes.
MR TAN: Thank
you.
MR ONG: Your
Honour, I have no further questions.
COURT: Thank you.
Cross-examination by MR ONG
MR ONG: May it
please your Honour.
Good
afternoon, Mr Koh. My name is Ong Ying Ping.
I am counsel
for Mason Works, the 2nd defendants in this
case.
Mr Koh,
can I confirm with you that when you first
approached Mr
Fred Wong he was also being consulted
because you
wanted to see if micro-piling for the
brewery was
really necessary, wasn't it?
A. I did not
approach Fred Wong.
Q. I mean, by the
time Mr Shelley, I think, referred him to
you -- once
you had spoken to him, you wrote an email to
the directors
to say that Fred Wong could assist in
reconsidering
whether you need to do micro-piling; am
I correct?
A. Yes.
Q. And that was
sometime in late August 2006; correct?
A. Yes.
Q. Now, the
meeting with Clarke Quay management, where the
suggestion
came up to split the brewery from the
restaurant
came up only in early September, wasn't it?
A. Yes.
Q. And the
decision that you cannot avoid micro-piling was
also around
that time, wasn't it? That you had to do
micro-piling?
A. Yes.
Q. Mr Koh, let me
now take you to the last paragraph of
your affidavit
at page 7, paragraph 22.
A. Yes.
Q. Is it your
evidence that during the meeting on
8 November
2006 -- this paragraph says:
"William
Graham then said that he only signed the
quotation that
Mason Works had brought and he would then
refer the
entire Pump Room project to Crispin Casimir
for review.
William Graham then wrote the note agreeing
that the
project would be reviewed by Crispin Casimir on
the
quotation."
So that's
your evidence before this court?
A. Yes.
Q. Let me show
you what Mr William Graham wrote. It's
found in his
affidavit of evidence-in-chief at page 176
and 177.
A. Yes.
Q. At 176 you see
handwritten words on the bottom left-hand
corner; right?
A. Yes.
Q. It says:
"Amount to
be reviewed and confirmed as reasonable
by independent
consultant (Crispin)."
Do you
have that?
A. Yes.
Q. Let's see the
next line:
"Same
retention as main contract. Otherwise,
Crispin to
recommend."
Is that
your reading?
A. Yes.
Q. Okay. Mr Koh,
you understand what "retention sum" is,
right, because
of this project?
A. Yes, you could
say that, yes.
Q. So when you
say "retention sum" you refer to the
retention sum
on this quotation only; right?
A. I did not say
same retention sum or whatever sum because
this was not
signed by me; this was attention to me but
it's signed by
--
Q. That's not my
question, Mr Koh. Follow my question.
You
understand that each of the retention sums from
Mason Works
came in individual quotations, don't you?
A. Yes.
Q. Right. So
when you see "retention sum" on this
quotation,
then it must only mean this quotation, would
it be correct?
A. I cannot
comment. I cannot answer that question because
I did not --
Q. No, you see
you are specially picking one special
situation when
I'm asking you in general first, whenever
you see Mason
Works retention sum, it goes for each
particular
quotation, right or wrong?
A. Yes.
Q. So, if you see
"retention sum" again on this quotation,
it should only
mean this quotation, would that be
correct?
You see
you're trying very hard to avoid my
conclusion,
because you already concluded in your mind
that the whole
project was to be reviewed, but I am only
asking you as
concerning retention sum, it must only
mean this
particular quotation, would that be correct?
A. Yes.
Q. Thank you.
If you
turn to the next page, it is the same
quotation for
the brewhouse, isn't it?
A. Yes.
Q. Let's look at
the words at the bottom left-hand corner.
Can you read
it for us?
A. "To be
reviewed and approved as reasonable by qualified
engineer".
Q. "Crispin"?
A. "Crispin".
Q. That's
different from what you saw on the other page,
isn't it? Can
you read what Crispin's description there
was?
A. Crispin's
description?
Q. What are the
words before "(Crispin)" in the earlier
page?
A. "Amount to be
reviewed and confirmed as reasonable by
independent
consultant (Crispin)."
Q. So in the
earlier page it was "independent consultant"
and on the
later page "qualified engineer"?
A. Yes.
Q. So wouldn't I
be correct to say that Mr William Graham
made a
mistake?
A. Yes.
MR ONG: No
further questions, your Honour.
COURT: Thank you.
Re-examination by MR VIJAY
MR VIJAY: Yes,
your Honour, just one.
Do you
know what is the retention sum in this whole
project?
A. The actual
amount or the explanation of the word?
Q. Is it based on
amount or based on percentage?
A. No.
Q. Sorry?
A. No.
Q. You don't
know. Then how do you conclude that the
retention sum
there refers to that quotation only?
A. This wasn't
written by me. It was attentioned to me,
but my
signature is not here, so I did not write all
this, it's
written by William Graham, so I wouldn't know
what the
retention sum is, the amount or whatever.
MR VIJAY: I have
no further questions.
COURT: Thank
you. You are discharged.
(The witness withdrew)
MR VIJAY: Can we
take a break?
COURT: Yes.
(3.49 pm)
(Short break)
(4.10 pm)
MR VIJAY: May it
please your Honour. This is George Clark
Martin, the
first affidavit in bundle 2.
GEORGE CLARK MARTIN (sworn)
Examination-in-chief by MR VIJAY
MR VIJAY: You are
George Clark Martin?
A. Yes.
Q. Your address
is 30C Saint Thomas Walk, Singapore,
238111?
A. Correct.
Q. Your
occupation.
A. Company
director.
Q. I refer you to
your affidavit of evidence-in-chief. Do
you confirm
the contents to be true and correct?
A. Correct.
MR VIJAY: That's
all, your Honour.
COURT: Yes. Who
is cross-examining him?
MR SREENIVASAN:
Myself, your Honour.
Cross-examination by MR SREENIVASAN
Q. Mr Martin,
insofar as an establishment like The Pump
Room is
concerned, it's quite different from a normal
restaurant; am
I right?
A. In what way?
Q. Let's take two
restaurants that we may be familiar with,
Mr Graham's
two restaurants; Peony Jade, that is
a straight
restaurant; am I right?
A. Yes, it's a
Chinese restaurant, yes.
Q. And then we've
got Quayside Seafood, that's also quite
different?
A. Yes, it's more
of an al fresco restaurant.
Q. Then you've
got those nightspots that are novel and
happening, am
I right, for example, China Jump?
A. Yes.
Q. You were
involved in China Jump?
A. Yes.
Q. It was a very
successful nightspot?
A. Yes.
Q. And the
designer for China Jump was Mr Ed Poole; am I
right?
A. Yes, Ed Poole
was a designer through his company
Poole
Associates, they managed the project.
Q. Then, for this
job, for The Pump Room, you recommended
Ed Poole to be
the designer; am I right?
A. I recommended
Ed Poole and his company to be the project
managers and
the designers, yes.
Q. I'm not very
careful about distinguishing between the
two of them,
because the suit against Ed Poole
personally has
already been discontinued, so there is no
more case
against Ed Poole himself.
A. Okay.
Q. So when I use
the words "Ed Poole", we can use it as
Ed Poole and
Poole Associates, in terms of the design
function.
You have
given an affidavit in this matter. You are
the most
experienced member of the board of directors of
The Pump Room
when it comes to creating a nightspot as
opposed to a
restaurant; am I right?
A. It depends who
is deciding that.
Q. No need to be
modest. You have China Jump under your
belt. Does
anybody else have that kind of track record
of nightspots
that you have?
A. On the current
board, no.
Q. Yesterday, Mr
Graham told us that one of the reasons why
Pump Room has
become so successful is because of the
band, Jive
Talking, do you agree?
A. They are an
excellent band, yes.
Q. Who chose the
band?
A. I did.
Q. So if the band
has contributed to the success of the
Pump Room and
you chose the band, you can take some
credit for the
success.
A. Thank you.
Q. No, can you?
That was not a rhetorical question. I was
seeking a
"yes" or "no" from you.
A. It depends on
who is looking at it.
Q. The next door
pub to The Pump Room is The Highlander?
A. Correct.
Q. And you got
Mason Works to do the work for The
Highlander?
A. Correct.
Q. I was reading
your affidavit very carefully and I looked
at it; nowhere
in your affidavit do you say that
Ed Poole or
Poole Associates were project managers; am I
right? Read
it carefully?
A. Say that
again, sorry?
Q. Look at your
affidavit very carefully. Nowhere in your
affidavit do
you say that Ed Poole or Poole Associates
were project
managers for The Pump Room; am I right?
You don't say
that in your affidavit?
A. Correct.
Q. You also
nowhere in your affidavit say that Ed Poole or
Poole
Associates were responsible for costing or cost
control for
The Pump Room; am I right?
A. In the
affidavit, no, I don't say it, but in his
contract, it
was part of his contract, yes.
Q. You got him
involved in this job and you have been
silent on this
aspect in terms of your affidavit; am I
right?
A. I'm sorry, I
don't understand. How do you mean?
Q. You got him
involved in this job; am I right?
A. Yes.
Q. And in your
affidavit you have been silent as to the
scope of his
duties?
A. I think
section 7, does it not say that?
Q. In section 7
you described him as a designer; am I
right?
A. When someone
has taken on --
Q. Do you
describe him a designer in section 7?
A. He personally
is a designer, yes, his company were in
place to do
the project.
Q. Do you say
that anywhere in your affidavit?
A. Not as far as
I'm aware, no.
Q. In fact, the
choice of Mason Works as a contractor arose
from the
meeting you had with Mr William Lee in April
2006; am I
right?
A. I have
difficulty remembering that meeting, but we had
worked
together in the past.
Q. Let me refer
you to the affidavit of William Lee.
A. Sorry, which
book is this in?
Q. Sorry, Wan Yew
Fai, not William Lee, I do apologise.
A. Sorry, which
page should I be looking at?
Q. Can you look
at page 4, paragraph 11, page 129.
A. Yes, I have
it.
Q. In February
2006, Mr Wan Yew Fai says you visited
Mason Works's
office, and you spoke to him regarding
wishing to
operate a western-themed food and beverage
establishment
-- which establishment is this?
A. This would be
Highlander.
Q. Shall we move
on, to page 130:
"Around
June 2006, Mr Clark Martin contacted me and
said that he
and his business partners have secured four
to five units
of shophouses and have already engaged
the 3rd
defendant to be design consultant for the entire
project,
expected to be two separate outlets i.e. a pub
eventually
called Highlander and a brewery cum
restaurant
eventually called The Pump Room."
Do you
agree with what Mr Wan has said here?
A. I certainly
did visit their office, that is correct.
Saying that I
have four or five units of shophouses
houses would
be incorrect. Definitely there was one
secured for
The Highlander.
Q. Is it correct
that you told him there would be two
separate
outlets?
A. At that point
I don't think it had been confirmed, but
we were saying
it probably would be two separate
outlets.
Q. Say again?
A. We probably
would be two doing separate outlets, but at
that I don't
think anything was confirmed --
Q. June 2006,
look at it carefully, nothing was confirmed
yet?
A. Sorry?
Q. I am not
trying to change your answer, I just want to
get it clear.
A. If it was
June, yes.
Q. Was it already
confirmed?
A. If it was
June, I would think so, but, as I say, I can't
remember,
sorry, at the beginning it says "around June
2006"?
Q. Yes.
A. I'm a bit
vague on that date.
Q. Okay. Now,
who recommended Mason Works for the work on
The Pump Room?
A. Mason Works
were in place to do some demolition work at
the site of
The Highlander.
Q. And then?
A. And then, when
The Pump Room project came along, then
that was the
point where there was some demolition work
that was done
and also Mason Works did it.
Q. And then how
did they end up as contractors for The Pump
Room? Because
they were in place?
A. They were
doing work already at The Highlander, which is
right next
door.
Q. And they had
also worked with you for the Cafe Society
project; am I
right?
A. Correct, yes.
Q. Were you
involved in negotiating the contract between
The Pump Room
and Ed Poole, or Poole Associates?
A. Negotiating as
in what?
Q. Discussing the
terms and conditions, discussing the
pricing, scope
of works.
A. There was a
review of the pricing, yes.
Q. What about
terms and conditions, were you involved?
A. The terms and
conditions are always standard in the
Poole
Associates contracts.
Q. And the scope
of work?
A. It's always
standard in the contract.
Q. When you did
China Jump, there were M&E works; am I
right?
A. Yes, but with
China Jump that was so many years ago
I might be a
little bit vague in giving you clear
answers on
that.
Q. But China Jump
is at Chijmes?
A. Correct, it
was a Chijmes.
Q. The old
convent, it's a heritage building; am I right?
A. It's an old
convent, I don't know if it was heritage.
Q. It's a
conserved building?
A. I would think
so, yes.
Q. You can't tear
down walls and change the facade, am I
right?
A. I think there
were some changes, major changes, because
the actual
Fountain Court where China Jump was didn't
exist before.
Q. For the M&E
works that were done in China Jump, did you
ask Ed Poole
to review the costing?
A. I can't
remember, it was so long ago, but I would
imagine so.
Q. Think very
carefully; did you ask Ed Poole to review the
costing for
M&E works?
A. I would
imagine so. I really can't remember, it's so
long ago.
Q. Did you ask Ed
Poole to put up timelines, project
timelines?
A. In most
projects it's normal to get timelines, yes.
Q. But my
question wasn't that. My question was; did you
ask Poole
Associates to put up timelines?
A. Any architect
or any design team who would be doing that
would normally
give you timelines.
Q. Can we come
back to my question; did you ask
Poole
Associates to give you timelines for China Jump?
A. As I said,
it's so long ago, I can't remember exactly.
Q. Because my
instructions are that Poole Associates did
not give
timelines for China Jump -- do you agree or you
can't
remember?
A. I can't
remember.
Q. Let's go to
Cafe Society. That is a bit more recent,
isn't it?
A. Yes.
Q. Do you have
timelines from Poole Associates for Cafe
Society?
A. As far as I
remember, yes.
Q. Can you
produce those timelines and come back tomorrow
and show it to
us?
A. Probably not,
no.
Q. What happened
to all the paperwork for Cafe Society?
A. The gentleman
that was in charge of the company, the
major
shareholder, left Singapore, and his office,
where
everything was
kept for all the companies was -- I guess
you would call
it closed down, so he left in quite
a hurry, so
nothing was --
Q. He left in
quite a hurry.
I'm
putting it to you that the reason that you have
never referred
to Poole Associates or Ed Poole
as project
manager or involved in controlling costing
anywhere in
your affidavit is because the reason is that
Ed Poole was
not the project manager; you have been
honest in your
affidavit by being very silent, by
refusing to
call him project manager, because he wasn't;
do you agree?
A. Sorry, I
disagree.
Q. Do you agree
that Ed Poole being a project manager is an
important part
of the plaintiff's case?
A. What does that
mean?
Q. It's an
important part of The Pump Room's case; you
can't win
against Poole Associates, unless they were the
project
manager?
A. In all the
jobs that we have done in the past --
Q. No, hang on,
my question, do you agree that it is an
important part
of the plaintiff's case that
Poole
Associates were project manager -- "yes", "no",
"I don't
know"?
A. Yes.
Q. And if it's an
important part of the plaintiff's case,
it is
something you would have cast your mind to; am I
right?
A. It's something
that is part of the contract.
Q. No, hang on.
If it's an important part of the
plaintiff's
case, it's something you would have cast
your mind to,
it would have been at the forefront of
your mind; am
I right?
A. It's clearly
stated here in my affidavit that Ed Poole
was -- in
section number 7, I recommended Ed Poole for
the job.
Q. Yes, let's
look at section number 7:
"I
recommended Ed Poole to be the designer."
Let's look
at section number 8, when you complain
about various
things about Ed Poole. Let's look at
section number
9, when you complain about Ed Poole.
Let's look at
section number 10, when you complain about
Ed Poole.
Do you
describe him as project manager in any of
these
sections?
A. In the
sections, it's not mentioned, the term project
manager --
Q. Anywhere in
the affidavit?
A. It's part of
the designer's scope of works.
Q. Do you say
that in your affidavit?
A. I haven't said
it, but it's normal practice.
Q. Mr Martin, I'm
suggesting to you that you were silent
because you
knew that Ed Poole was not the project
manager for
the entire project, and you have now made
that assertion
because you know that it's an important
part of the
plaintiff's case -- I repeat that.
When you
wrote this, you were telling the truth, now
you are adding
in the allegation to help the plaintiff's
case -- do you
agree or disagree?
A. I disagree.
Q. Do you agree
that if Ed Poole was the project manager --
maybe we ought
to get it straight -- when you say he is
the project
manager also for the structural and also for
the M&E works,
is that what you are saying?
A. He was the
overall project manager.
Q. Includes the
structural and M&E works?
A. I would think
so. I'm not qualified to say that. He
was the
project manager for the design, the whole
concept. It's
like -- may I make an example?
Q. Yes, please
do.
A. We're working
on another job at the moment and the
architect/designer, their contract also has them
in as
project
manager, and it seems to be pretty standard in
the jobs that
have been in the past with
Poole
Associates there hadn't been issues with them,
so
with project
manager, they project managed, so they help
adhere to
costs, even with The Highlander, this is the
same, we
adhered to costs.
Q. And in this
particular case for The Pump Room do you
agree that Mr
Poole and Poole Associates looked
carefully at
the cost of the architectural finishes?
A. The reason
we're probably sitting here today is no.
Q. Do you agree
that architectural finishes -- do you
understand
what that is?
A. What do you
mean by that?
Q. The tiles, the
wall finishing, the accessories, the
lights -- do
you agree that Poole Associates looked at
those costs
very carefully?
A. They certainly
reviewed the costs on these.
Q. Do you agree
that they reviewed the cost of the
furniture, the
custom-made furniture that came from
Bali --
A. Yes.
Q. -- very
carefully?
A. I can't say
very carefully, but, yes, they reviewed it.
Q. Are you aware
that, insofar as the items in the first
quotation of 8
September are concerned, the plaintiff's
expert has
said that the figure is fair?
A. Sorry, can you
explain that again?
Q. Do you know
there was a quotation of 8 September by
Mason Works?
A. Should I look
at it?
Q. No, do you
know? If you say you don't, I won't even
bother you?
A. I am sure
there were different quotations --
COURT: Do you
know about this quotation? I know there were
many
quotations. Please answer the question.
A. Off the top of
my head, I would need to see it to say
did I see it.
MR SREENIVASAN:
As a director, did you review the
quotations.
A. I didn't get
to see them all.
Q. Did Mr Graham
show you the quotations -- some but not
all?
A. Again, I can't
answer that without seeing them.
Q. No, did he
show you any quotations?
A. Probably, I
saw some, but there were certainly some that
maybe, as the
project got later, I was getting more
heavily
involved in The Highlander, so maybe I didn't
see all
quotations.
Q. Now let's look
at the first quotation.
A. Where do I
find this?
Q. I'm giving you
the reference, hold on. Can you look at
Mr Poole's
affidavit. It is page 54 -- have you got it?
A. Almost --
okay, I see.
Q. Page 54, in
the bottom right corner, do you see W Graham
signing it on
12/9/2006? Got it?
A. Yes.
Q. The quotation
goes on from page 55. Ignore the date
10 September,
but it goes on from page 55 right up to
page 67.
A. Okay, I see
that.
Q. Have you seen
this quotation at that time, not for the
purposes of
the trial? "Yes", "no" or "I can't
remember"?
A. I can't
remember.
MR SREENIVASAN:
No further questions, your Honour.
COURT: Thank you.
MR ONG: No
questions, your Honour.
MR VIJAY: No
re-examination.
COURT: Right.
You are discharged. At this stage shall we
take stock?
(The witness withdrew)
MR SREENIVASAN:
Perhaps we will start tomorrow morning.
COURT: I will see
you all in chambers.
(4.34 pm)
(The
hearing adjourned until 11.00 am on
Wednesday, 5 November 2008)
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