📚 Acrostics Anatomy: United Overseas Bank vs Lippo
The Singapore bank’s fight to claw back money from a unit of Indonesia’s Lippo Group over allegedly inflated housing loans.
📸 Snapshot: United Overseas Bank vs Lippo (20 July 2025)
📒 Quick Take: UOB’s Pyrrhic Victory Over Lippo (21 July 2025)
🎞️ Slideshow: Lippo’s Furniture Rebate Scheme (22 July 2025)
📸 Snapshot: United Overseas Bank vs Lippo
20 July 2025
Singapore’s United Overseas Bank was awarded SGD 17.7 million (USD 13.8 million) in its legal battle with a unit of Indonesia’s Lippo Group.
The saga might seem lengthy and convoluted, so I’ve extracted the key paragraphs from court documents to unravel the case.
Singapore’s United Overseas Bank (UOB) was awarded SGD 17.7 million (USD 13.8 million) in its long-running legal battle with Lippo Marina Collection, a unit of Indonesia’s Lippo Group, and two property agents.
The Singapore High Court’s assessment of the damages on 30 June 2025 followed a key ruling by the Appellate Division of the High Court, which in 2022 overturned an earlier judgment and found Lippo liable for conspiring with the property agents to mislead the bank into disbursing inflated housing loans, according to The Straits Times.
The saga might seem lengthy and convoluted to those who are new to it, so I’ve extracted the key paragraphs from the 2022 ruling to unravel the case (the court documents can be found on eLitigation).
Background
In 2021, UOB filed an appeal after the General Division of the Singapore High Court dismissed its claims against Lippo for “unlawful means conspiracy” and/or deceit.
Hidden Rebates
UOB alleged that all 38 buyers of the condominium units did not disclose that they received “furniture rebates”, in violation of the terms of the loan facilities. This also caused UOB to breach the 80% loan-to-value cap imposed by the Monetary Authority of Singapore.
“Unnecessarily Complicated”
In their 2022 ruling, the Judges at the Appellate Division of the Singapore High Court – Belinda Ang Saw Ean, Woo Bih Li and Quentin Loh – had some blunt words for UOB’s lawyers.
The Heart of the Dispute
The stated purchase price (SPP) – which was the basis for UOB to grant the housing loans – was inflated by “furniture rebates” that ranged from SGD 1.25 million to SGD 2.39 million per unit.
As the Appellate Judges pointed out, the real purchase price was the lower price (SPP minus the rebates). By 1 April 2015, all 38 purchasers had defaulted on their mortgages.
“It Was Much More Than That”
The Judge at the lower court was of the view that Lippo could simply have not been concerned with the circumstances in which the excess loans were granted. He expressed that Lippo was perhaps “apathetic” or had acted without caring how UOB would be affected, which may have been “sharp practice” but not unlawful.
However, the Appellate Judges disagreed with this assessment, saying that Lippo “deliberately stated the false price” in the option to purchase (OTP) and therefore had “armed the purchasers with the instrument to deceive UOB”.
What’s Next?
“Notwithstanding the award, UOB intends to appeal the decision,” a UOB spokesman told The Straits Times. This is likely because the award of SGD 17.7 million fell short of the SGD 92 million sought by the bank.
UOB had aimed to recover the outstanding loan principal, the cost of funding those loans, expenses related to investigations into the conspiracy, and costs associated with repossessing the units, according to The Straits Times. The bank also wanted to quantify what it could have earned from lending to legitimate borrowers, along with claims for statutory interest.
However, the court found that UOB had failed to mitigate its losses by not selling the repossessed units when there was a recovery in the property market in 2017. The court recognized around SGD 53 million in claims but deducted SGD 37.2 million to account for repayments and rental income collected by the bank, The Straits Times reported, adding that UOB also received SGD 2.3 million in statutory interest.
Tan Kok Quan Partnership acted for UOB, while Senior Counsel Siraj Omar – who set up his own firm in January 2025 – represented Lippo.
📒 Quick Take: UOB’s Pyrrhic Victory Over Lippo
21 July 2025
After a legal battle spanning 11 years, UOB was awarded less than 20% of the SGD 92 million that it had sought from a unit of Indonesia’s Lippo Group.
UOB made two major mis-steps, based on the court documents and remarks from the Singapore judges.
United Overseas Bank (UOB) may have won SGD 17.7 million (USD 13.8 million) in its long-drawn war with a unit of Indonesia’s Lippo Group, but this is a Pyrrhic victory given the time and costs spent by the Singapore bank so far.
After a legal battle spanning 11 years over inflated mortgages, UOB was awarded less than 20% of the SGD 92 million that it had sought from Lippo Marina Collection in its attempt to claw back both the costs and opportunity costs of granting the loans. “Notwithstanding the award, UOB intends to appeal the decision,” the bank reportedly said.
UOB disbursed more than SGD 181 million of loans for the purchases of 38 condominium units in Singapore’s Sentosa Cove, which were found to have been inflated by furniture rebates, according to court documents. By 1 April 2015, all 38 purchasers had defaulted on their mortgages. (Click here for my snapshot of the case).
Lippo reportedly refused to take up an offer by the bank to settle the case through mediation, which was noted in the key 2022 ruling of three judges at the Appellate Division of the Singapore High Court: “Lippo does not appear to fully appreciate the gravity of its conduct. This matter should have been settled before it reached a trial.”
However, UOB also made two major mis-steps, based on the court documents and remarks from the Singapore judges.
Root and Branches
First, UOB’s lawyers missed the heart of the dispute, which was the stated purchase price (SPP) that formed the basis for the housing loans. “The dispute involving Lippo would not have been particularly complex had UOB focussed on Lippo’s role in inserting the SPP in the OTP (option to purchase),” the Appellate Judges said.
“In this court’s view, the OTP Misrepresentations are crucial because the entirety of the financing and the conveyancing processes flows directly from the SPP in the OTP,” according to Judges Belinda Ang Saw Ean, Woo Bih Li and Quentin Loh (this sentence was originally bolded and italicized in the court documents).
My takeaway from the judges’ assessment is that instead of going after the proverbial branches, UOB’s time and efforts may have been more fruitful had it targeted the root – the inflated price that was inserted in the option to purchase – because everything else stemmed from it.
Market Turn
Second, UOB was deemed to have failed to mitigate its losses by not selling the repossessed condominium units when Singapore’s property market bounced back in 2017, according to The Straits Times.
“UOB need not have sold (the units) in the midst of softening conditions, that would have been a risky course of action,” Justice Aidan Xu reportedly said in a brief judgment dated 30 June 2025 that assessed the damages. “But when the market turned in 2017, UOB should have started selling at that point.”
Justice Xu rejected UOB’s argument that it was reasonable to delay mitigation while awaiting the outcome of the lawsuit. “Wait and see is not what the law requires,” he said.
Mystery Buyers
A question mark still hangs over the identity of the buyers of the 38 condominium units.
The so-called Furniture Rebate Plan is a bit complicated, but the key thing is that the rebates granted by Lippo to each purchaser amounted to a 4% exercise fee, completion fee, and a surplus sum for the purchaser, according to the court documents.
However, the Appellate Judges pointed out that “not only were the 4% Exercise Fee and Completion Fee effectively paid by UOB, but Lippo also conceded that there would always be a surplus sum which was credited to the purchaser upon completion.”
The Straits Times reported in 2022 that 32 of the 38 purchasers were nominees or fronts for four investors based in Indonesia. The newspaper also said in February 2024 that the Singapore police were investigating Lippo Marina Collection over alleged fraud, but there has been no public update on the probe since then.
This is unlikely to be the end of the saga.
🎞️ Slideshow: Lippo’s Furniture Rebate Scheme
22 July 2025
UOB disbursed more than SGD 181 million of loans for the purchases of 38 condominium units in Singapore’s Sentosa Cove, which were found to have been inflated by furniture rebates, according to court documents.
