http://www.tremeritus.com/2014/03/20/mother-sues-daughter-over-online-post-on-mp-foo/
Eleanor Tan Kok Neo, 79, is suing her stepdaughter, Wendy Chan Mei Yoke, 49, for breaking an agreement that prevented her stepdaughter from discussing her family online.
Mdm Tan claimed that Ms Chan breached their agreement by making a post on the Channel NewsAsia forum around 13 October 2012, regarding a discussion in Parliament on rising property prices.
In a thread titled “Wow Ms Foo Mee Har wants to know is $1 mil HDB flat a norm in future”, Ms Chan allegedly said:
I obviously cannot comment on your bimbo statement but it is a fact that she is with stan chart. A simple google search should also bring up her position in the bank.
That aside why would people with plenty investment properties want the price of property to be more affordable? Isn’t the best thing one can do in Singapore is to make money and make more and more and more at all costs?
Ms Foo Mee Har is an MP for West Coast GRC. She is Mdm Tan’s daughter-in-law. In October 2012, the following question was posed in Parliament [Link]:
In view of the recent record property transactions including a one million dollar Queenstown flat, Ms Foo Mee Har asked the Minister for National Development whether the anticipated fresh flood of liquidity into the U.S. financial system with QE3 announced by the U.S. Federal Reserve will have an impact on property prices and affordability.
Mdm Tan’s family tree [Link] shows her maternal great-grandfather is Mr Chia Hood Theam. Chia Hood Theam (1863-1938), was a third generation Peranakan, one of the first board members of the Singapore Chinese Girl’s School and Comprador of the Mercantile Bank for many years. He was one of the wealthiest men in that era. In fact, a family reunion of his descendants in February 2000 saw a gathering of almost 200 family members.
Tracing the tree, it can be seen that Mdm Tan and her late husband, Dr Harold Chan, have 4 children:
Gerald Chan Teck Chuan
Jacqueline Chan Guek Choon
Bernard Chan Teck Hock
Noreen Chan Guek Cheng
One of Mdm Tan’s sons, Bernard Chan, is married to MP Foo Mee Har.
Ms Chan is a keen cyclist who completed a lone 2,000km ride from Bangkok to Singapore in 2002 to raise money for the Breast Cancer Foundation.
Ms Wendy Chan was born out of wedlock after her father, Dr Harold Chan, had an affair. Ms Chan later came to live with the family at the age of 7. Understandably, the family did not include Ms Wendy Chan’s name in the tree. Since Bernard Chan is the half-brother of Ms Wendy Chan, MP Foo is naturally the half-sister-in-law of Ms Wendy Chan too.
It emerged in court yesterday (19 Mar) that the agreement was modified after mediation in 2012 to allow Ms Chan to make remarks about the family as long as they were not “defamatory, scandalous or untrue”, the media reported.
But Mdm Tan says Ms Chan broke a verbal promise at the session to honour her “paramount concern” that Ms Chan not comment about the family at all. Mdm Tan also alleges that she was misled into agreeing to the amended terms. She wants them set aside and is seeking unspecified damages and a court order against her stepdaughter, Ms Chan.
While cross-examining Mdm Tan, Ms Chan’s lawyer argued that no oral agreement was made at the mediation session on 5 September 2012, and that his client did not breach the new written terms with her post. That is to say, Ms Chan did not think her post about her half-sister-in-law, MP Foo, was “defamatory, scandalous or untrue”.
Ms Chan’s lawyer charged that Mdm Tan brought the suit under pressure from her other children. He said, “You have conflated a legal basis to come to court and an emotive desire to want (the commenting) to stop.”
Mdm Tan replied, “I really don’t know, my feelings are all confused.” But she disagreed that she was pressured by people to sue her stepdaughter.
Despite the civil suit, Ms Chan has expressed her gratefulness to Mdm Tan for looking after her. During a media interview in 2012, Ms Chan said, “She looked after me for 40 years and is mum for me and I am grateful.”
An article published by the Straits Times (ST) in 2011 (‘New PAP faces stunned by online vitriol’, 31 Mar 2011) mentioned that a bankruptcy order was served on MP Foo’s husband by Standard Chartered Bank [Link], the same bank that Ms Foo worked for at the time. She was then the global head of priority clients at the bank. However, for some reasons, the bankruptcy order against her husband was later withdrawn and he was not made a bankrupt. During the 2011 general election, ST reported that Ms Foo did not want to talk about her husband’s bankruptcy matter and would only say that he works as a general manager at an IT firm.
The 3-day trial continues today (20 Mar). 2 lawyers present at the mediation session are expected to take the stand after Mdm Tan’s lawyer finishes re-examining her.
<!-- start: postbit_editedby -->
