Hin Leong’s $3.4 billion claim against Deloitte struck out by apex court
The Court of Appeal has determined that Hin Leong’s trading losses were “not reasonably foreseeable” by Deloitte when it undertook the engagement.
Published Jul 17, 2026, 05:00 PM Updated Jul 17, 2026, 05:00 PM
SINGAPORE – The apex court in Singapore has struck out insolvent oil trader Hin Leong Trading’s largest claim of US$2.6 billion (S$3.4 billion) against its former external auditor.
A five-judge Court of Appeal on July 16 allowed an appeal by auditing firm Deloitte & Touche that arose from a pre-trial application to strike out Hin Leong’s claim for trading losses.
The decision leaves Hin Leong with two remaining claims – one for US$90 million in dividends that were wrongfully declared by the family of its founder Lim Oon Kuin, and another for $612,000 in audit engagement fees paid to Deloitte.
The claims will be determined at trial.
In a 96-page judgment, the court ruled that Deloitte is not liable for the trading losses Hin Leong incurred from November 2015 to mid-April 2020.
It also ruled that an auditor’s duty of care does not include a “duty to consider the interests of creditors” of a firm it audits when that firm is insolvent.
Hin Leong had argued that it would have been put into liquidation earlier and not have incurred further trading losses, had Deloitte “not been negligent in the conduct of its audit” and “uncovered the fraudulent or improper conduct of the Lim family” in their management of the company’s affairs.
In rejecting such contentions, the court determined that the trading losses were “not reasonably foreseeable” by the auditor when it undertook the engagement.
The court said Deloitte did not have any involvement in Hin Leong’s trading activities, and that it “did not have any sight over” the trading strategies that the company employed.
The court found that the auditor did not give any input to the Lim family – Hin Leong’s sole shareholders – on trading methodologies.
The judgment said: “This gaping hole in Deloitte’s knowledge makes it fanciful for Hin Leong to suggest that it could have been in Deloitte’s reasonable contemplation that it had essentially signed up to insure Hin Leong’s trading fortunes.
“It is inconceivable that an auditor who does nothing more than perform a statutory audit could be taken to have assumed liability for such losses since their occurrence depends on movements in the market and the decisions of the company’s management which the auditor has no control over or involvement in.”
In deciding that the trading losses were not reasonably foreseeable for Deloitte, the court also considered that it is “unlikely” the auditor would have assumed responsibility for Hin Leong’s losses based on a “lower degree of knowledge” than required.
In short, the auditor only “signed up” for the risks defined by the law.
Hin Leong accused Deloitte of professional negligence in failing to uncover and report the irregularities in its financial statements and affairs for a period of about six years before April 2020.
Through its liquidators, the firm is demanding that the auditor make good on the losses caused by its founder, better known as OK Lim.
Deloitte argued that the Lim family, being in control of Hin Leong, already knew of what was going on in the firm, and that the losses are irrecoverable from the auditor.
WongPartnership represented Deloitte, while Drew and Napier acted for Hin Leong in the appeal.
