This is not the first time Chiew was accused of corruption. Photo: Albert Chua/The Edge Singapore

Collin Chiew, the former CEO of AON Singapore, has been charged for corruption and money laundering offences. Chiew, who was later the director of group corporate solutions at AIA Company Limited, was charged with taking $668,000 in bribes while he was in charge of AON and as a director at AIA.

The bribes were said to be paid by three former directors of Fullerton Healthcare Group (FHG), a vertically integrated healthcare platform in Asia.

The FHG directors, David Sin, Daniel Chan and Michael Tan, were charged on Feb 8, for bribing Chiew and falsifying accounts, said the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB) in a statement. Sin is the former chairman of the board of Fullerton Healthcare Corporation, while Chan and Tan were formers director at FHG.

This is not the first time Chiew was accused of corruption. In December 2023, he was accused of taking $240,000 in bribes on two occasions between December 2017 and May 2018 from FHG as well. The bribes were obtained through Straits Priority Consulting.

On Feb 8, he was charged with three additional counts of corruptly obtaining gratification in relation to $384,000 of bribes. The bribes were obtained when Chiew was CEO of AON on several occasions from 2015 to 2018. They were said to be given by Chan in a bid to advance FHG’s business interests. Chan himself was charged with four counts of conspiring with two others to bribe Chiew.

Chiew was also charged with one count of obtaining bribes in 2019 when he was the director of AIA. There, he obtained another $320,000 from Chan to advance the business interests of FHG with AIA.

Chan and Sin also face one count of conspiring to corruptly give gratifications to Chiew.

In addition, Chan was charged with eight counts of falsifying accounts. According to several media reports, Chan faked entertainment claims from 2016 to 2019 defraud Fullerton Healthcare Corporation and Fullerton Health China to bribe Chiew.

Fullerton Health was in the news in October 2016 after its initial public offering (IPO) was delayed following complaints received by the regulators. The offering was meant to be priced at $1.52 per share to raise $213 million at the time.

In May 2018, Fullerton Health was said to eye a US IPO after it failed to list in Singapore.