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SINGAPORE – A debt collection company sent letters of request to debtors in which it claimed to be a "legal consultant" – although this was not the case.
A court heard that the sole owner of Double Ace Associates (DAA) – Tan Kian Tiong, 52 years old – had never been in possession of a certificate allowing him to practice law and that his name did not appear on the chart of the Singapore Supreme Court.
He pleaded guilty on Monday, November 26 to 40 counts of being an unauthorized person acting as a lawyer or solicitor.
Tan also admitted 20 counts of having wrongly stated that his company was a "limited liability partnership" or "LLP". All offenses were committed between 2013 and 2015.
The court heard that 1,083 other similar charges would be taken into account in sentencing.
Deputy Prosecutors Teo Guan Siew, Tay Jingxi and David Koh have stated in court documents that Tan has been a debt collector for about 20 years.
The PDPs stated that, in the course of his activities, Tan had sent request letters to all the alleged debtors of his clients.
They added: "The accused has obtained the template for these Internet application letters and has modified it according to his objectives."
Tan asked his employees to use a standard format for all DAA request letters.
On August 5, 2014, a 56-year-old woman received a letter of this type from DAA and showed it to her lawyer for legal advice. A month later, the lawyer filed a complaint with the Law Society, claiming that DAA had claimed to be "legal consultants".
In October of the same year, the Law Society wrote to the Attorney General (AGC) stating: "It appears that DAA is providing legal advice, and counsel is also of the view that DAA's letter of request is a threatening letter of prosecution and it is not a letter of notification stating that the case will be submitted to a lawyer for the purpose of court proceedings. "
Another woman received a letter of request from DAA in June 2015 and she wrote a letter of complaint to the Law Society, thinking that she was from a "law firm".
The company wrote a second letter to the AGC and the commercial affairs department then conducted its investigations against DAA. Tan has received $ 20,000 bail and should be sentenced on January 9.
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