The court battle spanned twocountries and almost 20 years.
At the heart of the issue: A loan of just over RM 5million ($2.2m).
A Malaysian court had ordered Singaporean Tham Kwok Onn to pay up the debt.
He incurred it after the owner of a company of which he was a director had defaulted on a bank loan and had been made bankrupt.
Mr Tham was the guarantor for the loan.
But in the 20years that he battled the judgment in Malaysian and Singapore courts, the debt has snowballed to RM16.7m, after taking into account interest charged at 14.5 per cent per annum.
Mr Tham, whose age and occupation are not known, has yet to repay a single cent.
Earlier, the Singapore High Court ruled that the Malaysian judgment can be enforced here following an application by Perwira Affin Bank Bhd.
The saga began in 1984, when Mr Lee Hai Pey borrowed RM5m from the bank for his business, Golden Produce Sdn Bhd.
When Mr Lee defaulted on repayments, the bank sued him and made him a bankrupt.
Soon after, Golden Produce was wound up, but its liquidated assets were not enough to repay the loan and the bank went after Mr Tham as he was jointly liable for the debt.
In 1988, Perwira Affin Bank won a judgment in the Malaysian courts against Mr Tham for repayment of the loan, including interest that was charged from 1 Jul 1984.
Mr Tham's appeal against the judgment was dismissed by the Malaysian High Court in 1994. The appeal took six years to be heard because of a backlog of trials.
In the meantime, the bank got the Singapore courts to recognise the judgment. The Malaysian judgment could be enforced here under the Reciprocal Enforcement of Commonwealth Judgments Act.
But Mr Tham successfully applied to have this application set aside, as the Malaysian appeal was then pending.
In 1995, the bank again tried to have the judgment recognised in Singapore.
But Mr Tham also got this setaside, as more than six years had passed since the original verdict.
The bank then applied toMalaysia's High Court to execute the judgment against Mr Tham there and in Singapore.
Again, Mr Tham applied to have the execution dismissed and to have the Singapore proceedings put on hold pending the Malaysian decision, but an assistant registrar dismissed his application.
However, in March 1997, then-Justice Warren Khoo allowed his appeal, saying that there was no telling which way the Malaysian appeal would go.
On 25 Oct 2004, the Malaysian court dismissed his application against execution.
Perwira Affin Bank returned to the Singapore courts lastyear in another bid to get the judgment recognised here.
The assistant registrar granted its application in November last year.
Mr Tham appealed again, arguing in the High Court that Justice Khoo had reversed the assistant registrar's order dismissing his application, therefore the bank could not have the judgment recognised here.
BANK STILL HAS CASE
But in her judgment published in May, Justice Judith Prakash ruled that Justice Khoo had not dismissed the bank's application, but had merely delayed the proceedings pending the Malaysian appeal.
Mr Tham appealed yet again, but failed to set out his reasons before the deadline lapsed last month. In civil appeals, parties have two months to set out their reasons for appeal after judgment.
The bank's lawyer, Mr Leo Cheng Suan of Infinitus Law Corporation, said the debt has yet to be repaid and he was still awaiting further instructions from his client.
source:
http://newpaper.asia1.com.sg/news/st...38864,00.html?
He refuses to pay $2m debts,now he owes.. $7m 
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