SINGAPORE — Over the course of three years, an engineer at semiconductor wafer fabrication company Globalfoundries Singapore received “commissions” from a supplier each time the firm bought a machine part based on the engineer’s recommendation.

The scheme unravelled when the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB) received information that the supplier was involved in suspicious transactions with employees from Globalfoundries.

On Thursday (Nov 3), Lui Tze Pin, 50, was handed a fine of S$28,000 after pleading guilty to one charge of bribery, with five other similar charges taken into consideration in the sentencing.

The total sum that Lui had received was in excess of S$12,600, which he has surrendered to CPIB.

Court documents stated that the party who allegedly gave the bribes is Lim Thiam Hwa, who was the director of supplier company Star Technology Services. His case is still pending before the courts.

WHAT HAPPENED

Lui joined the company in March 2008 as a senior engineer.

Part of his responsibilities included the maintenance and troubleshooting of machines, as well as submitting requests via the company’s purchasing system if some parts were faulty and required replacing, or if new parts needed to be bought.

Lui had to get three different price quotations from three registered suppliers, before selecting one to recommend to his section manager and putting in the official request via the system.

The section managers would not usually question the requests raised by the engineers and would approve them. 

Lim became acquainted with Lui in 2010 when Lim would contact him whenever some parts needed to be replaced.

After Lui was appointed as an “equipment lead” in 2012, Lim allegedly met him and offered a "commission" each time Globalfoundries bought equipment from Star Technologies.

Court documents showed that Lui and Lim agreed that the commission would be paid in cash after a few transactions so that there would be no trace of it.

In total, Lui received about S$12,600 in bribes from March 2012 to 2015.

Each conviction for bribery carries a prison sentence not exceeding five years or a fine up to S$100,000, or both.

A CPIB statement in July named four former employees of Globalfoundries who would be charged for the alleged corruption offences.

Besides Lui, three others who were named were: A Nityanandan Nallathamby, Cheng Tzin Loung and Xia Yanbin.

Court records showed that Xia, 43, was sentenced to four months’ jail in October, while Cheng and Nityanandan are scheduled to plead guilty on Nov 7 and Nov 30 respectively.