ROBERT Wang, the hot-shot lawyer for the big tycoons in Hong Kong was in a meeting with some lawyers from San Francisco discussing a tie-up when he was informed by his secretary that Li Ka Shing, the richest man in Hong Kong, was on the line and asking for him.
Hoping to impress the American lawyers he asked to be put on speaker- phone. Instead of the affable chat he expected, he received a severe dressing down from Li, who shouted down the line, calling him an idiot. Wang immediately called his Singapore office to find out what had happened; despite Wang’s request not to bill Li, they had proceeded to bill Li for work done.
“I was born on the last day of 1938 in the heart of British Malaya...in a house on Weld Road, Kuala Lumpur.” So begins the tale of another lawyer who has similarly made his mark in his home country. After an eventful childhood he found himself, on very slender support, in London doing law, and almost scrounging for a living. A couple of rich aunties saved him. He passed his articleship and went back a solicitor in 1970.
“[Making the Malays competitive with training and education].That is what must be done, isn’t it? Not to feed them with this obscurantist doctrine that all they have got to do is to get Malay rights for a few special Malays and their problem has been solved.” ‘T.O.’, as Robert calls his mentor, Ting Oung, a former Finance advisor and a savvy investor, advised him as he was setting up his practice: “Get someone – an Englishman to do the British work. Hong Kong is a colony. You can’t escape them. They are everywhere – in government, in the judiciary, in banking, in business, -you name it- they are there.”
Indirectly and ironically Malaysia was one of the victims, and also one of the causes of the stock market crash. In 1980 the Malaysian controlled consortium, the Carrian Group acquired Hong Kong’s most prized commercial property, Gammon House, for an exorbitant sum. When its stock shot up, it went on a shopping spree for real estate, sparking speculations about its backers. Chooi describes the wild ride of the group in a section in the book entitled, ‘Swimming Naked.
Chooi devotes the next quarter of his book to his experience in trying to find out the truth and identify the culprits behind what was Malaysia’s biggest financial scandal. It reads like a fast moving detective tale involving international players, with the action taking place in Hong Kong, Malaysia and England.
“Mr Wang, I would like to hear from you myself. Why are you eager to practice in Singapore? What are the concerns of Hong Kong Lawyers?” In contrast, the Eighties in Malaysia was, according to Chooi, the “Decade of Scandals”. The three-man Committee of Enquiry had finished their 1,300-page Report on the BMF scandal in December, 1985. They found that the country had lost up to USD292 million due to ‘conspiracy to defraud, to theft, false accounting and corruption, with the final USD4 million released on the very day that Jalil Ibrahim was murdered.
Wang’s walk with the Tycoons ended when he broke free of the intrigues, and Suntec City sold. Now his children have grown and he and his wife, a jet-set couple.
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