Singapore-India JV in courts
A Singapore High Court-appointed liquidator is investigating the affairs and divestment of assets of an education company linked to a Gurugram-based firm whose assets have been attached by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in India.
Last month, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) attached assets worth Rs.90.31 crore of Gurugram-based company Educomp Professional Education Ltd under the anti-money laundering law in connection with an alleged bank loan fraud case.
A provisional order for attachment of the properties has been issued under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) against Educomp Professional Education Ltd, a group company of the Educomp Group, it said in a statement.
Singapore liquidator Wong Joo Wan said on 9 April 2022 that he was investigating the alleged divestment of certain assets of Educomp Asia Pacific (In compulsory liquidation) since 30 June 2017, as well as fund movements of the company’s bank accounts with the State Bank of India and OCBC Bank of Singapore prior to the commencement of the liquidation, reported Press Trust India.
Petitioning creditors of Educomp Asia Pacific, related to the same name as the Indian entity through common directors, are Singapore’s Raffles Education Investment (India) Pte Ltd and Raffles Design International India Pvt Ltd.
Both of these companies belong to the Singapore education group whose Indian partnerships have fallen apart due to the borrowers’ inability to pay debts, estimated to be a few million Singapore dollars.
Wong said he was probing several alternatives in determining the exact amount of debts which include Singapore dollars 34.7 million as a book value of Learning Internet Inc of the USA, a company within the Educomp Asia Pacific internet-based learning network.
Legal experts believe that Learning Internet shares were pledged for borrowings from the SBI.
Though the former directors have left Educomp Asia Pacific in December 2016, they are still liable for assets of the Singapore-registered company which had business links to India for setting up the education centre, the experts believe.
The ED case of money laundering against the group stemmed from a First Information Report (FIR) filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) against the accused company and its promoters, according to Indian media reports. fiinews.com
