Benjamin Thong
Managing Director, Head of Singapore

Benjamin Thong is a Managing Director and Head of Singapore at Perun Consultants.

Before joining Perun Consultants to start its Singapore office, Benjamin left a Big 4 consulting firm and founded his own forensic and litigation support practice, subsequently merging the business with an American boutique accounting firm. Previously, Benjamin had also started and headed the Risk Consulting practice in Vietnam for a Big 4 consulting firm.

Benjamin is a seasoned expert with over 20 years of experience in consulting – including financial and forensics due diligence and divestment advisory, governance, compliance, risk management, forensic and Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) investigation and litigation support and financial advisory. Benjamin has also undertaken a wide range of insolvency related engagements.

He has helped global multi-national corporations in conducting internal investigations and compliance monitoring assignments. Furthermore, he has also been retained by numerous clients – both companies and individuals - as their expert witness providing testimonies in litigation and arbitration proceedings.

Benjamin has worked across industries like pharmaceutical, telecommunication & technology, FMCG, construction, hospitality and leisure, oil and gas and manufacturing. His practice spans across multiple jurisdictions, including China, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Hong Kong, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore and Australia.

Representative engagements

• Retained by a global construction conglomerate, listed on the Japanese stock exchange, for an investigation into their joint-venture partner and defensive strategies to assist the client in preparing for potential litigation.

• Valuation and review of the financial affairs of a medical company and served as the expert witness for the work carried out.

• Expert witness in a case of the former managing director of a Singapore-listed company’s subsidiary suing his former employer over the sale of his shareholding in the subsidiary.

• Expert in a shareholders’ dispute providing testimony in an arbitration with the shareholder. Project included review of the transactional financial data to collate evidence of criminal breach of trust.

• Expert witness looking into the investigation of a UK hotel owned by a Singapore company, relating to possible criminal breach of trust, and other white-collar crimes.

• Led the investigation into a former director of China-owned Singapore entities in connection with alleged breaches of corporate policies and procedures.

• Expert witness for the investigation of a multi-billion iron ore trading company. Provided testimony on the irregular fund transfer of the company.

• Investigating and acting as the expert witness of a company in the food & beverage industry in connection with allegations of wrongdoing by the company’s finance manager, such as siphoning the company’s cash from sales.

• E-Discovery engagement, where he was acting at the technology consultant for the client to undertake forensic extraction of data from the targeted laptop.

• Conducted an internal investigation of a Singapore-listed company in a financial misstatement fraud case. Benjamin was able to uncover and collate the evidence in a scheme of non-disclosure of fixed assets purchased. This investigation required him to review the accounting policies relating to procurement, inventory, asset management and depreciation.

• Provided litigation support where he computed the loss of profit for a local sports brand distribution. The matter related to a breach of fiduciary duties by a lawyer for his failure to register the patent in Malaysia. The report included scenarios relating to the various permutation of the loss of profits due to the distribution models. The matter was won by the client and a negotiated settlement was reached, based the computation of the loss ascertained.

• Conducted an internal investigation of a global fire and safety conglomerate in Singapore. He assisted the general counsel in investigating allegations relating to an employee receiving bribes from suppliers and sub-contractors.

• Led the strategy with the lawyers and oversaw the investigation of several allegations of abuse and management misconduct in connection with litigation support investigation of a family dispute in Indonesia, leading to a court dispute in Singapore.

• Conducted an independent investigation of a global real estate agency and property management company in Vietnam to ascertain the loss of the company’s client relating to the employee committing criminal breach of trust and theft. 

• Assisted the general counsel of a global advertising and media conglomerate in Vietnam in uncovering evidence and conducting interviews for a television commercial leak of their client, prior to the official launch of the television commercial.

• Led a cyber investigation for a Japanese technology consulting company where there was suspicion of a cyber attack on equipment used for a Singapore government agency project.

• Investigation of a rogue employee of a Temasek-linked company who had extracted confidential information from the company prior to his resignation.

• Led the back-end monitoring compliance programme for a global pharmaceutical conglomerate where he managed a team conducting data analytics on the employee claims to determine if there were breaches to the client’s Travel & Expense and Anti-Bribery & Anti-corruption policy. The back-end monitoring compliance programme involved the monitoring of several thousand employees in the Asia-Pacific region.

• Director in charge of an AUP due diligence engagement in China relating to a loan disbursement to a Chinese company in the mineral processing industry.

• Director in charge of an AUP due diligence of the sale of a hotel in Singapore.

• Director in charge of a FCPA review of a global conglomerate’s automotive division in Malaysia and China. Adapted the global programme, coordinated with the global team in resource management and the process of the review, the findings and the application of the data analytics.

• Acted as the lead advisor for the sale of 16% shareholding in a Singapore-listed company, with a transaction value of over SGD 160 million.

• Director in charge of liquidating three companies, with an estate as the major shareholder, with a portfolio of about 80 properties, including an office building in the Central Business District in Singapore, with an estimated portfolio value of approximately SGD240 million. Role included the management, sale and distribution of the proceeds to the nominees.

Professional qualifications and associations

• Member, CPA, Australia

• Fellow, Insolvency Practitioners Association of Singapore

• Associate Member, Association of Certified Fraud Examiner

• Bachelor of Commerce – Accounting & Finance, University of Western Australia

Languages

• English

• Mandarin

• Cantonese