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Company fined S$200,000 for misleading customers about links to Acra

SINGAPORE — A private company that tricked businesses into subscribing to its services by sending out letters designed to look like they came from the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority Singapore (Acra) was fined S$200,000 on Friday (June 3).

Data Register (formerly Company Register) sent out nearly 140,000 letters in October and November 2013 claiming that companies that fail to provide information would have their details “deleted from the Singaporean Company Register database”. Photo: Working With Grace/Wordpress

Data Register (formerly Company Register) sent out nearly 140,000 letters in October and November 2013 claiming that companies that fail to provide information would have their details “deleted from the Singaporean Company Register database”. Photo: Working With Grace/Wordpress

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SINGAPORE — A private company that tricked businesses into subscribing to its services by sending out letters designed to look like they came from the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority Singapore (Acra) was  fined S$200,000 on Friday (June 3).

Data Register, which offers domain registration and Web hosting services, had sent out nearly 140,000 letters in October and November 2013 claiming that companies that fail to provide information would have their details “deleted from the Singaporean Company Register database”.

Thinking that this was related to Acra’s records, 1,056 firms fell for the ruse, with each paying an annual subscription fee of S$490 to Data Register (formerly called Company Register).

On Friday, the court was told that Acra received an “unprecedented number of inquiries and complaints” in relation to Data Register between October 2013 and April this year. Acra also spent nearly S$60,000 engaging external vendors to attend to queries concerning Data Register, the court was told. “Many members of the public informed Acra that they had mistakenly assumed that Data Register was linked to Acra and that they were obliged to provide the requested information,” the prosecution said.

Not only did the letters did not provide sufficient information for recipients to ascertain who had issued them, they contained several features — such as an “ultimatum” set for companies to comply with requests — which misled many recipients into thinking they were from Acra, the prosecution added. The episode not only caused businesses which had unwittingly subscribed to Data Register’s services to be frustrated but also tarnished goodwill between Acra and the business community because the authority had become “indirectly associated with the confusion caused”.

Data Register was convicted last month of 500 counts of not stating its company name and registration number on business correspondence, a requirement under the Companies Act. Another 604 charges were taken into consideration in sentencing.

In February this year, Data Register offered a refund to subscribers who had signed up as a result of their correspondence in 2013 if they had not used any of Data Register’s services. Its home page also carries a note specifying that the company has no relation to Acra.

In sentencing the company on Friday, District Judge Jasvender Kaur said the incident caused public disquiet and led to a “wastage of public resources”. The judge also said deterrence and retribution were the foremost sentencing principles in this case. 

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