SingPost board outlines details of proceedings that led to sacking of CEO, 2 other top execs

Singapore Post on Dec 29 published a detailed account of the disciplinary proceedings leading to the sacking of three of its senior executives, saying the company's board of directors had ensured due diligence, and that the three had an opportunity to be heard before it made its decision.

- Kang Wan Chern

"The termination of senior management was a carefully considered decision by the board, based on established facts and supported by legal advice, including a second independent opinion from the senior counsel of another law firm," SingPost board chairman Simon Israel said in a Dec 29 statement.

In a filing with the Singapore Exchange, SingPost's board outlined the investigation and disciplinary process leading to the termination of the employment of group chief executive officer Vincent Phang, group chief financial officer Vincent Yik, and CEO of the implicated international business unit (IBU) Li Yu.

It was responding to stakeholder and media inquiries, and corporate governance concerns.

All three are contesting the decision, saying the reasons provided for the termination of their employment are without substantive grounds and that the process leading to it was not conducted fairly.

The board's account was detailed in two phases: the first focusing on the falsification of e-commerce shipment data, which had been identified through a whistle-blowing report, and the second on the senior executives' conduct in handling the whistle-blowing matter.

PHASE ONE: FALSE ENTRIES ON DELIVERY STATUS CONFIRMED

The first phase of investigations related to the practice within Mr Yu's IBU of manually keying in the "DF" (delivery failure) status code in respect of a significant number of parcels that SingPost had agreed to deliver, which falsely indicated that delivery had been attempted but had failed.

A "DF" status code counts as a valid status code that indicates SingPost has tried to make a delivery and would count towards it satisfying certain key performance indicators.

The allegation raised in the whistle-blowing report was that the manual "DF" data entries were being done to avoid payment of certain contractual penalties to the customer, whose identity remains undisclosed.