On 31 July, the Court of Three Judges acquitted Member of Parliament Christopher de Souza of improper conduct as a lawyer.
Last year, a disciplinary tribunal found him guilty of being aware that his client had breached the conditions of a search order.
The court found that he did not intend to suppress the breach.
According to Channel NewsAsia (CNA), Mr de Souza had been acting as a partner of law firm Lee & Lee for Amber Compounding Pharmacy and Amber Laboratories.
Initially, Amber was represented by law firm Dodwell and Co when they sued a former employee and her firm for “allegedly stealing trade secrets.”
Under search orders, the Dodwell and Co lawyers obtained documents and information from the defendants.
However, it was agreed that Amber could not use any of these documents or information, save for during the court proceedings in the lawsuit.
They seized 116,298 documents in April 2018 under the search orders. Amber then breached its agreement by making three reports in 2018.
These reports, revealing 10 documents, were sent to the Ministry of Manpower (MOM), the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB) and the Singapore Police Force (SPF).
They did so before Lee and Lee, together with Mr de Souza, took over the suit. In November 2018, they were asked to act for Amber over the reports.
Aware of the breach, Mr de Souza and his colleagues advised Amber to follow up on it, according to internal correspondence at Lee and Lee.
However, when Amber filed the affidavit, the disciplinary tribunal found that Mr de Souza did not ensure they fully disclosed the breach.
The Law Society of Singapore (LawSoc), presented by Mr Madan Assomull from Assomull & Partners, had sought a four-year suspension for Mr de Souza.
According to The Straits Times (ST), Mr Assomull argued that Lee and Lee’s internal correspondence showed that Mr de Souza was aware of the breach.
However, when a company representative filed a court application to use the documents, he did not disclose this in the affidavit.
Hence, Mr Assomull pointed out that Mr de Souza decided not to show the reports in the affidavit as there was a deliberate intention to make it vague.
The Court of Three Judges asked Mr de Souza’s senior counsel, Tan Chee Meng, how Amber had drafted the affidavit.
Mr Tan had argued that the affidavit did disclose that Amber had used the documents. However, Justice Woo said he had to read paragraph 24 multiple times because “it’s not as clear as he made it out to be.”
In response, Mr Tan agreed but questioned if this reflected the desire to suppress evidence.
CNA reports that Mr Assomull said if a client disagreed with specific phrases a lawyer felt should be written in an affidavit, the lawyer must discharge themselves.
He also asserted that the court would send young law practitioners the wrong message if a lawyer could get away with “bad drafting”.
Mr Tan pointed out that Mr de Souza had discharged himself in July 2019 when Amber had used the documents against his advice.
After much back and forth, the Court of Three Judges ultimately decided that Mr de Souza did not intend to suppress the breach, which was clear to them.
Mr de Souza’s lawyers told CNA that their client was “extremely pleased” with the verdict.
He also stressed that he had always acted with integrity as a lawyer, and the allegations against him were wholly unfounded.
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Featured image adapted from govsg on YouTube.
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