Defendant John Lam testifies that provisions were made for church’s board members to have complete details about the Xtron investments, including using them to fund the Crossover Project.
CN PHOTOS: Michael Chan.
As a Chartered Financial Analyst and a Fellow of Certified Public Accountant, CHC trial defendant John Lam’s professional expertise had been rendered in drafting the church’s investment policy in June 2007, in view of the church’s surplus funds of more than $20m which were earmarked for the purchase of its new worship premises.
As the court had heard multiple times earlier in the trial, the idea for the drafting of the investment policy came on the back of advice given by the church’s auditor Foong Daw Ching, and this policy was subsequently used as a guideline for how the church should make investments.
In this afternoon’s court proceedings, Senior Counsel Kenneth Tan, Lam’s defense lawyer, sought to show the court that there had been no attempt to conceal information about the church’s investments into the Xtron bonds from the church’s board members.
Creation Of The CHC Investment Policy
Lam was the first chairman of CHC’s investment committee (IC). In drafting the policy, the court heard that Lam had consulted with various individuals in the financial industry, and had even referred to his old textbooks on investment portfolio management to ensure that he was doing the proper thing.
The court also heard that through an IC meeting chaired by Lam in Dec 2007, it was eventually decided that the church board should have full details of every investment made through its fund management firm, AMAC Capital Partners, founded by Chew.
This was subsequently realized through a Deutsche Bank investment statement, which laid out “as plain as daylight” the details and purposes of the Xtron bonds for the knowledge of the church’s board members.
This morning’s session saw Lam echoing the sentiments of previous witnesses called by the prosecution, namely former Xtron directors Koh Siew Ngea and Choong Kar Weng—that he genuinely believed the Crossover Project to be in line with the church’s constitution, which was to spread the Gospel to the ends of the earth.
Lam continues on the stand tomorrow.
中文报道 – CHC审讯：思创债券用途已向董事会会员透露
