The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has issued six-year prohibition orders (POs) against Mr Koh Kesheng Stedtson, following his convictions in the State Courts for offences involving dishonesty, namely forgery and cheating.
2 Under the POs, which took effect from 27 October 2021, Mr Koh is prohibited from providing any financial advisory service, or taking part in the management, acting as a director of, or becoming a substantial shareholder of any financial advisory firm under the Financial Advisers Act. He is also prohibited from carrying on business as, or taking part in the management of, any insurance intermediary under the Insurance Act.
3 Mr Koh was a representative of Manulife (Singapore) Pte Ltd from September 2013 to February 2015. While at Manulife, Mr Koh dishonestly induced seven customers to sign contracts for new Manulife insurance policies, by telling them that the premiums paid for their existing insurance policies from another insurer could be transferred to new policies issued by Manulife. Subsequently, Mr Koh forged documents to deceive the customers into believing that the cash value of their existing insurance policies had been successfully transferred to their new Manulife policies.
4 In fact, the customers’ previous policies lapsed because they stopped paying premiums on their previous policies, believing that they only needed to pay premiums to Manulife. The premiums that they had paid for the previous policies therefore became irrecoverable, as the policies were terminated before their maturity dates.
5 On 15 February 2021, Mr Koh pleaded guilty and was convicted by the State Courts of four counts of cheating and two counts of forgery under section 420 and section 468 of the Penal Code respectively. He was sentenced to 24 weeks’ imprisonment in total.
Source: Monetary Authority of Singapore