<TABLE border=0 cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%"><TBODY><TR>MD jailed for copying military tender info
</TR><!-- headline one : end --><TR>High Court dismisses his appeal, saying data had military significance </TR><!-- Author --><TR><TD class="padlrt8 georgia11 darkgrey bold" colSpan=2>By Khushwant Singh
</TD></TR><!-- show image if available --></TBODY></TABLE>
<!-- START OF : div id="storytext"--><!-- more than 4 paragraphs -->A MANAGING director who copied confidential information about a military tender was sent to jail yesterday after his appeal was dismissed by the High Court.
Charles Tan Chye Guan, 37, whose firm du Lexbuild International supplied materials to the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF), was sentenced to a three-week jail term after pleading guilty in January to copying the file without authority.
Justice Choo Han Teck noted that although Tan had already paid the $5,000 fine, the offence also carried a maximum two-year jail term, and the court could have handed down a more severe sentence.
The data he copied pertained to munitions storage and had military significance, the judge said.
Tan committed the offence during a meeting with Mr Chew Chin Seng, a project manager at the Defence Science and Technology Agency (DSTA), in December 2006. Tan had handed over to Mr Chew his thumb drive, which contained some drawings for a tender for munitions transport containers for the SAF.
During their talk, Mr Chew's cellphone rang and he moved to a corner of the lobby to answer it.
Noticing a file he thought may contain information related to the $8 million tender, Tan took over the officer's laptop and copied the file to his thumb drive. The data included all the suppliers participating in the tender, their bids and DSTA's evaluation of their offers.
Later, Tan instructed his project consultant to modify the file before e-mailing it to ST Kinetics.
While Tan did not take part in the tender, he had hoped that his firm could work with ST Kinetics if it won the bid.
In the end, another company won the tender and ST Kinetics complained to DSTA about a suspected leak of confidential information to Tan's firm.
At the appeal hearing on May 15, Tan's lawyer Michael Khoo tried to argue that the jail term should be set aside because the data in the file was only 'commercially sensitive'.
Asking that Tan be fined without a jail term, Senior Counsel Khoo said Tan had also acted on the spur of the moment and regretted his wrongdoing.
The court should also be lenient as Tan's wife was suffering from myeloid leukaemia, which required him to bear additional expenses.
But Deputy Public Prosecutor Gillian Koh Tan insisted that jail time was necessary, pointing out that DSTA is the statutory board responsible for implementing defence technology plans, managing defence research and developing infrastructure for the Ministry of Defence. [email protected]
</TR><!-- headline one : end --><TR>High Court dismisses his appeal, saying data had military significance </TR><!-- Author --><TR><TD class="padlrt8 georgia11 darkgrey bold" colSpan=2>By Khushwant Singh
</TD></TR><!-- show image if available --></TBODY></TABLE>
<!-- START OF : div id="storytext"--><!-- more than 4 paragraphs -->A MANAGING director who copied confidential information about a military tender was sent to jail yesterday after his appeal was dismissed by the High Court.
Charles Tan Chye Guan, 37, whose firm du Lexbuild International supplied materials to the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF), was sentenced to a three-week jail term after pleading guilty in January to copying the file without authority.
Justice Choo Han Teck noted that although Tan had already paid the $5,000 fine, the offence also carried a maximum two-year jail term, and the court could have handed down a more severe sentence.
The data he copied pertained to munitions storage and had military significance, the judge said.
Tan committed the offence during a meeting with Mr Chew Chin Seng, a project manager at the Defence Science and Technology Agency (DSTA), in December 2006. Tan had handed over to Mr Chew his thumb drive, which contained some drawings for a tender for munitions transport containers for the SAF.
During their talk, Mr Chew's cellphone rang and he moved to a corner of the lobby to answer it.
Noticing a file he thought may contain information related to the $8 million tender, Tan took over the officer's laptop and copied the file to his thumb drive. The data included all the suppliers participating in the tender, their bids and DSTA's evaluation of their offers.
Later, Tan instructed his project consultant to modify the file before e-mailing it to ST Kinetics.
While Tan did not take part in the tender, he had hoped that his firm could work with ST Kinetics if it won the bid.
In the end, another company won the tender and ST Kinetics complained to DSTA about a suspected leak of confidential information to Tan's firm.
At the appeal hearing on May 15, Tan's lawyer Michael Khoo tried to argue that the jail term should be set aside because the data in the file was only 'commercially sensitive'.
Asking that Tan be fined without a jail term, Senior Counsel Khoo said Tan had also acted on the spur of the moment and regretted his wrongdoing.
The court should also be lenient as Tan's wife was suffering from myeloid leukaemia, which required him to bear additional expenses.
But Deputy Public Prosecutor Gillian Koh Tan insisted that jail time was necessary, pointing out that DSTA is the statutory board responsible for implementing defence technology plans, managing defence research and developing infrastructure for the Ministry of Defence. [email protected]
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