Duo guilty of bribery and 27m euros L/C fraud
2010-7-29
A director and a manager of a textile machine dealer, charged by the ICAC, were today (Thursday) convicted at the District Court of bribery and conspiracy to defraud a bank of letter of credit (L/C) facilities totalling over 27 million euros.
Henry Chee Hoi-suen, 64, a director-cum-shareholder of Motionning Industrial Company Limited (Motionning), and Raymond Yu Man-chiu, 46, a manager of Motionning, were found guilty of 13 joint charges of conspiracy to defraud.
Chee was also convicted of one count of offering an advantage to an agent, contrary to Section 9(2)(a) of the Prevention of Bribery Ordinance.
Deputy Judge Timothy Casewell adjourned the case until August 12 for mitigation and sentence. The defendants were remanded in the custody of the Correctional Services Department.
The court heard that Motionning was a dealer of Promatech S.p.A., an Italian manufacturer of textile machines, with the dealership confined to Guangdong Province.
Motionning was also an authorised agent of a bank for referring Mainland customers to apply for L/C facilities from the bank.
The court heard that between May 2004 and June 2007, Chee and Yu conspired together with other persons to defraud the bank by dishonestly causing 13 Mainland companies to apply to the bank for the issue of L/Cs payable to Motionning, and falsely represent ing that Motionning had agreed to sell 690 sets of textile machines to those companies.
In support of the said L/C applications, Chee and Yu caused documents with inflated selling prices of the textile machines to be submitted to the bank.
As a result, the bank was caused to release a total of over 27 million euros to Motionning drawn on those L/Cs.
Between April 2006 and January 2007, Chee offered a total of 22,900 euros to Lucio Berbenni, a technical area manager of Promatech, as a reward for assisting Motionning in the sales of textile machines in Guangdong Province, the court was told.
Berbenni, 52, was also charged by the ICAC with one count of agent accepting an advantage. In September 2008, he failed to appear in Eastern Magistracy for mention, and a warrant for his arrest was issued.
The prosecution was today represented by prosecuting counsel Neil Mitchell, assisted by ICAC officer Bryan Tang.
Henry Chee Hoi-suen, 64, a director-cum-shareholder of Motionning Industrial Company Limited (Motionning), and Raymond Yu Man-chiu, 46, a manager of Motionning, were found guilty of 13 joint charges of conspiracy to defraud.
Chee was also convicted of one count of offering an advantage to an agent, contrary to Section 9(2)(a) of the Prevention of Bribery Ordinance.
Deputy Judge Timothy Casewell adjourned the case until August 12 for mitigation and sentence. The defendants were remanded in the custody of the Correctional Services Department.
The court heard that Motionning was a dealer of Promatech S.p.A., an Italian manufacturer of textile machines, with the dealership confined to Guangdong Province.
Motionning was also an authorised agent of a bank for referring Mainland customers to apply for L/C facilities from the bank.
The court heard that between May 2004 and June 2007, Chee and Yu conspired together with other persons to defraud the bank by dishonestly causing 13 Mainland companies to apply to the bank for the issue of L/Cs payable to Motionning, and falsely represent ing that Motionning had agreed to sell 690 sets of textile machines to those companies.
In support of the said L/C applications, Chee and Yu caused documents with inflated selling prices of the textile machines to be submitted to the bank.
As a result, the bank was caused to release a total of over 27 million euros to Motionning drawn on those L/Cs.
Between April 2006 and January 2007, Chee offered a total of 22,900 euros to Lucio Berbenni, a technical area manager of Promatech, as a reward for assisting Motionning in the sales of textile machines in Guangdong Province, the court was told.
Berbenni, 52, was also charged by the ICAC with one count of agent accepting an advantage. In September 2008, he failed to appear in Eastern Magistracy for mention, and a warrant for his arrest was issued.
The prosecution was today represented by prosecuting counsel Neil Mitchell, assisted by ICAC officer Bryan Tang.