Court orders hotelier Allen Law to pay S$29 million to Park Hotel liquidators

Businessman and hotelier Allen Law has been ordered by the High Court to pay S$29 million for having breached his fiduciary duties owed to his company, Park Hotel Management Ltd (PHMPL), which is now in liquidation.

Together with companies under his control, Law is jointly and severally liable for another S$4.29 million, a court judgment released on Thursday (Oct 16) indicated.

Justice Hri Kumar Nair said: “Law’s conduct, including the conduct of his defence, went well beyond what is acceptable within the bounds of adversarial litigation. It was dishonest, abusive and improper.”

Thursday’s judgment comes after Law was found to have transferred PHMPL’s viable assets and businesses to himself “at a gross undervalue” a few months before the company went into liquidation. This happened during the Covid-19 pandemic, which ravaged the tourism, hospitality and food-and-beverage industries. 

PHMPL’s liquidators have asked for an account of profits to be conducted for Yan Restaurant in National Gallery Singapore – one of the assets involved – and thus cannot claim the value of its shares. Yan closed down in March 2025.

Law and one of his companies, Good Movement Holdings, will be jointly and severally liable to pay this sum once it has been determined. For the sums Law and his companies have been ordered to pay, the judge ordered that the default interest rate of 5.33 per cent will apply. 

The judge also ordered Law’s legal team to provide the liquidators with documents they are seeking, which they will require to determine the amount of damages they are able to claim for the hotel management agreements sold by PHMPL to another of Law’s companies, Park Hotel Group Management (PHGM). 

These documents are expected to show the revenue earned and the operating costs incurred by PHGM for hotel management services, as well actual or forecasted profits or losses incurred by the assets. 

Justice Nair also approved the plaintiffs’ submission that Law and his companies pay costs for the lawsuit on an indemnity basis. Indemnity costs are awarded only in exceptional circumstances, against litigants who have engaged in unreasonable conduct. 

“Law’s actions, including his manipulation of PHMPL’s books and accounts, impeded the liquidators from discharging their duty to safeguard, collect and redistribute the company’s assets and inquire into the underlying reasons for the company’s demise, as well as the peculiar responsibility and particular role of management in the antecedent events,” said the judge.

“Law was also obstructive and unresponsive to the liquidators’ requests for information.”

For instance, in response to the liquidators’ requests for documents relating to an agreement PHGM signed with PHMPL, Law said the category was far too wide to be reasonable.

He also said he did not see why the correspondence between himself and any other person, excluding experts, would be relevant. 

Justice Nair said: “As it turned out, when PHGM was eventually ordered to give discovery of Microsoft Outlook accounts (an application which Law and PHGM resisted), the exchanges between Law and Tang (Buck Kiaw, PHMPL’s financial controller) evidenced their wrongdoing, including their concern and belief that enforcement action by PHMPL’s creditors was imminent and exposed how PHMPL’s books were manipulated to create a false timeline in relation to the transfer of PHMPL’s moneys and assets.”

The judge dismissed a request from the liquidators that Law bear the costs incurred for investigating, detecting, and unravelling the defendants’ conspiracy. 

Source: The Business Times © SPH Media Limited. Permission required for reproduction.

Park Hotel Management Pte Ltd (in liquidation) and others v Law Ching Hung and others [2025] SGHC 204

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