People's Action Party (PAP) Member of Parliament (MP) Christopher de Souza is set to appear before the Court of Three Judges on Jul. 31, 2023.

Appealing against one count of misconduct

The Deputy Speaker of Parliament and Holland-Bukit Timah Group Representation Constituency MP is appealing against a charge of professional misconduct.

The charge was one of five that were brought against de Souza by the Law Society of Singapore for his conduct while he was acting for Amber Compounding Pharmacy and Amber Laboratories.

de Souza is a lawyer and partner at Lee & Lee, which took over Amber's civil suit on Dec. 14, 2018.

Amber was suing a former employee and the company for allegedly stealing trade secrets.

Amber was granted a court order on Apr. 13, 2018 to carry out a search for documents on the condition that it give an undertaking not to use the seized documents without further order.

A total of 116,298 documents were seized on Apr. 17 that year, according to The Strait Times.

Client breached undertaking

However, Amber used 10 of the documents to file reports against the defendants with the police, the Ministry of Manpower and the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau between Jul. 31 and Oct. 22 in 2018, effectively breaching its undertaking.

While Amber breached its undertaking before de Souza and his firm overtook the case, de Souza was aware that Amber had done so.

He advised the latter to apply for the court’s permission to use the documents.

He helped a company representative file a supporting affidavit on Jan. 28, 2019, and did not disclose that some documents had been used.

Amber's court application for permission to use the documents was eventually heard by the Court of Appeal, after the parties being sued mounted an appeal.

This was the same time when de Souza's improper conduct came to light.

Law Society vs de Souza

The Court of Appeal then filed a complaint against de Souza to the Law Society on Sep. 9, 2020, and an inquiry committee convened on Jan. 13, 2021.

The inquiry committee found that de Souza had breached his paramount duty to the court, and recommended that he be fined S$2,000.

However, the Law Society council disagreed.

It applied to the Chief Justice for a disciplinary tribunal to be appointed to formally investigate the matter.

The Chief Justice appointed an independent disciplinary tribunal consisting of Sreenivasan Narayanan and Pradeep Pillai on Nov. 19, 2021.

After five days of testimony in April 2022, the two-member tribunal accepted that de Souza had tried to persuade the client to make full disclosure.

However, it said that Amber's conduct did not free de Souza from his failure to make such a disclosure.

de Souza's lawyers appealing for charge to be dismissed

The tribunal claims that de Souza was aware that his client breached an undertaking not to use documents seized in a search, and did not make full and frank disclosure to the court.

It added that de Souza helped his client suppress evidence by preparing and filing an affidavit that did not reveal that the client had breached its undertaking.

While the tribunal dismissed the four other charges, it found de Souza guilty of one count of misconduct.

The tribunal found that there was sufficient gravity for de Souza to face disciplinary sanction before the Court of Three Judges on that one charge.

de Souza's lawyers stated on Dec. 6, 2022 that they would argue for the charge to be dismissed.

He is represented by Tan Chee Meng and Calvin Ong of WongPartnership.

Both men previously told Mothership that there is "no question" that de Souza had acted with "utmost integrity" at all times during his conduct in the matter.

PAP aware

Meanwhile, the PAP said in a previous statement that it was aware of the disciplinary proceedings against de Souza.

"Mr de Souza has informed us that he denies any wrongdoing. He will argue his case on the one charge, on appeal before the Court of Three Judges," said the statement.

"We will await the verdict of the Court of Three Judges, and determine the course of action necessary after the verdict."

To be decided on Jul. 31, 2023

The Court of Three Judges Justices Belinda Ang, Woo Bih Li and Kannan Ramesh will decide during the Jul. 31, 2023 hearing if de Souza is guilty of professional misconduct.

If found guilty, de Souza could be disbarred, suspended or fined.

Related stories

Top image from People's Action Party/YouTube