Singapore's Tipsy Collective sues former directors, HR head; alleges S$14mil lost from misconduct, poor decisions

The Star

3 days ago

SINGAPORE: The legal battle over control of home-grown hospitality group Tipsy Collective has taken another turn.
The company – now led by its majority shareholders, who gained control after a boardroom shake-up in 2024 – has filed a lawsuit against its former leadership, seeking to recover more than S$14 million in losses and damages from a string of alleged wrongful payments, mismanagement and unauthorised deletions of company records.
In its statement of claim filed on June 12, the plaintiffs – Tipsy Collective and three of its subsidiaries (Tipsy Bird, Social Room Concepts and Tipsy Collective Singapore) – are alleging breaches of fiduciary and contractual duties by three former directors, David Gan Jia Liang, Derek Ong and Reuben Low Kok Cherng, and former human resources manager Avril Lim Qian Jun.
Gan, who was the former chief executive of the group, founded Tipsy Collective with Ong in 2019.
Following internal disputes, the bloc of investors and shareholders who oppose Gan has increased its collective stake from 59.39 per cent to 97.3 per cent, according to the latest shareholder records from the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority.
Gan currently owns 1.66 per cent of the company's shares, and Low holds 1.03 per cent.
As Ong died in August 2023, his wife, Melody Huang Bao'er, who is the administrator of his estate, was named as the second defendant in the lawsuit.
This new lawsuit follows an earlier court battle reported by The Straits Times in September 2024, in which Gan had sued eight parties – including investors and shareholders – claiming they had breached a shareholders' agreement and tried to unlawfully seize control of the company.
The defendants – Indonesian investors Reino Ramaputra Barack and Santosa Kadiman, Singaporean Rudy Hartono Widjaja and four shareholder entities – rejected Gan's claims.
Instead, they pointed to alleged financial mismanagement under his leadership. They cited mounting debts and lack of financial transparency, and questioned the $6 million spent developing Tipsy Unicorn beach club in Sentosa.
They claimed Gan had caused the company to take out $8.7 million in loans, of which $6 million remained outstanding, and that the company owed $5.2 million to suppliers and nearly $1 million to Sentosa Development Corporation.
Gan failed to get an interim injunction to retain control of the company's board and subsequently lost his lawsuit against the investors and shareholders.
On Nov 6, 2024, the board terminated his role as chief executive and removed Low as director. On the same day, Barack was appointed the chairman of the board of directors of Tipsy Collective.
Gan resigned from the board on Nov 15, 2024, while Lim's last day with the company was Nov 17 of the same year.
By December 2024, the financial toll of the leadership struggle had affected ground operations.
More than 100 employees had faced delays in salary payments since October 2024. The company managed to settle overdue Central Provident Fund contributions and salaries only after four shareholders injected emergency funding.
The group, which once operated 13 outlets, has since scaled down. At least four outlets have been shut since October 2024, and it is now left with five outlets.
Now, led by its new management, Tipsy Collective is turning the tables on its former leadership with this latest suit.
The first set of allegations involves unauthorised payments made.
The plaintiffs allege that Gan and Ong caused the companies to transfer more than $4.2 million to themselves and Low, or between entities, without justification. These included $1.49 million in payments, made in December 2020, and $2.8 million disbursed between June 2020 and May 2024.
The suit alleged that the payments had no commercial justification and brought no benefit to the companies, and that the three former directors failed to recover the funds, causing significant losses to the group.
The lawsuit also cited a string of poor business decisions that allegedly harmed the group financially.
The development of Tipsy Unicorn – a 19,000 sq ft beach club on Sentosa's Siloso Beach that opened in September 2023 – is at the centre of these claims.
The construction cost of the project ballooned from $4 million to more than $6.1 million due to lack of due diligence and planning. Court documents also noted that the claimants did not have sufficient resources to undertake the construction of Tipsy Unicorn.
Despite the fact that Tipsy Collective was 'in financial difficulties and needed monies from shareholders to sustain its operations', Gan and Ong allegedly continued to undertake more projects, the court documents noted.
Another alleged mishap flagged in court documents was the group's investment in Tipsy Flamingo Malaysia. The plaintiffs claimed the venture led to a loss of more than $1.3 million.
The renewal of leases for underperforming outlets, such as Tipsy Penguin, Tipsy Bunny and Tipsy Flamingo, was also highlighted. These new leases apparently involved higher rents and service charges, further straining the group's finances.
The lawsuit further accused Gan and Lim of destroying and withholding company records.
Gan allegedly deleted more than 4,000 files from the company's Google Drive and continued accessing company systems without authorisation after his departure. Lim is alleged to have erased nearly 5,000 files and formatted her company-issued laptop, erasing all stored data.
Both of them are being held liable for damages linked to the data loss, with the plaintiffs also seeking an injunction to prevent Gan from using any confidential company information that may have been retained.
Separately, the Ministry of Law's website showed Gan was declared bankrupt on June 19, in proceedings separate from the civil suit. - The Straits Times/ANN