Tamara Sweren v Estate of the late Lawrence Solomon [2026] SGDC 263

Introduction

This disposal inquiry concerns USD 94,002.99 and SGD 1.06 (the "Seized Monies") held in an HSBC Bank (Singapore) Limited account (the "HSBC Account"). The Seized Monies were seized by the Commercial Affairs Department ("CAD") under Section 35(1)(a) of the Criminal Procedure Code 2010 on 17 November 2022. The HSBC Account was held in the name of Ji Xiujuan.

As the Seized Monies are no longer required for CAD’s investigations or pending proceedings, CAD sought their disposal under s 370(2)(b) of the Criminal Procedure Code 2010.

There are two potential claimants:

(a) Tamara Sweren (“Tamara”) is a US-based victim who fell victim to a Facebook scam and was deceived into making a USD 99,000 wire transfer to the HSBC Account. She indicated that she will not attend the proceedings in Singapore and has no financial means to engage counsel. CAD had been in contact with her by email and phone, and through its foreign counterparts, to keep her updated.

(b) Lawrence Solomon (“Lawrence”) was another identified depositor who transferred USD 94,000 to the HSBC account after being defrauded by a scammer impersonating a bank officer. At the time of the disposal inquiry, Lawrence was deceased and survived by his son, Douglas Solomon ("Douglas"). The estate of the late Lawrence, represented by his son Douglas, appointed counsel Wong & Leow LLC for these proceedings.

The account holder remains uncontactable to date and is not a party to this disposal inquiry.

Besides Tamara and Douglas (on behalf of Lawrence's estate), there are no other potential claimants to the Seized Monies. Tamara seeks to claim the entire amount, while Douglas seeks to claim USD 94,000.

Having heard the submissions of State Counsel and counsel for Douglas, I ordered that the Seized Monies be distributed between Tamara and Lawrence’s estate on a pari passu basis. My reasons follow.

Background facts

The amended Investigation Report by CAD, filed on 18 June 2026, set out the background facts. I outline only the material facts here.

On 1 July 2022, CAD received information that Tamara, a US-based victim, had been deceived by a Facebook scam and had made a USD 99,000 wire transfer to the HSBC Account on 4 May 2022.

CAD's investigations into the HSBC Account revealed three other depositors, including Lawrence. As a result, on 31 January 2023, CAD contacted its foreign counterparts to determine whether the depositors might be potential fraud victims. The foreign counterparts confirmed that Lawrence, one of the three depositors, had transferred USD 94,000 after a scammer impersonated a bank officer and defrauded him.

The opening USD balance on the HSBC Account in April 2022 was USD 0.67. Between 26 April 2022 and 9 May 2022 (the "material period"), USD 247,000 was received from overseas remitters in four inward transfers.

Upon receipt of funds from Tamara and two other non-claimants into the HSBC account, the funds were commingled, converted into SGD, and transferred out the same day, with balances drawn down to USD 1.17. The SGD funds were transferred to another OCBC account and subsequently returned to the HSBC account in tranches. On 9 May 2022, SGD 69,873 returned to the HSBC account from the OCBC account was converted to USD 49,999.13 the same day. After the conversion, USD 49,998 was transferred out to a foreign entity, LV Lide. At this point, the HSBC account held a balance of USD 2.99. Lawrence then transferred USD 94,000 into the HSBC account.

Issues to be determined

The central issue for this court was how the Seized Monies should be distributed, if at all.

First, I consider the objectives of a disposal inquiry.

The nature of a disposal inquiry

It is trite that a disposal inquiry is intended to be an inexpensive and expeditious means of distributing property produced at trial or found during investigations. This aligns with the ‘rough and ready’ approach the court takes, given the lack of procedures in the civil process for deciding between claims such as disclosure or discovery of documents. The High Court has explained in various judgments that a disposal inquiry is not conclusive as to title, and that parties may commence separate civil proceedings to assert their legal rights.

Questions of ownership and title are best left to the civil court, and a disposal inquiry is not the appropriate forum for conclusively determining title.

The purpose of a disposal inquiry is to identify the party entitled to possession, not title. A central principle of any disposal inquiry is to determine whether the claimant(s) fulfil the Lawful Possession Precondition. The approach to determining the person entitled to possession is set out in Lim Tien Hou William v Ling Kok Hua [2023] SGHC 18 (“William Lim”):

(a) For a claimant to be entitled to possession, he or she must first satisfy the precondition of lawful possession of the seized property (the “Lawful Possession Precondition”): William Lim at [35]-[37]. The applicable standard is prima facie.

(b) If multiple parties satisfy the Lawful Possession Precondition and there is no further evidence indicating which party has a better claim, the seized property should be returned to “the lawful possessor of the property at the point of seizure: William Lim at [56].

To satisfy the Lawful Possession Precondition, the claimant must (1) adduce sufficient evidence to demonstrate its proprietary interest in the seized property; and (2) show that the interest was lawfully acquired or derived from a legitimate source.

Each claimant bore the burden of proof.

Lawful Possession Precondition

At the outset, the account holder of the HSBC account, who is the lawful possessor of the Seized Monies at the point of seizure, is not a party to the disposal inquiry despite CAD’s attempts to contact her. She has not discharged her burden of proving Lawful Possession Precondition. She is therefore not a claimant here.

Before turning to the question of distribution, I address the threshold question of whether either claimant satisfies the Lawful Possession Precondition. As the Court of Appeal affirmed in Public Prosecutor v Marlene Wise [2025] SLR 1603 ("Marlene Wise"), a claimant must show, on a prima facie basis, that the seized funds originated from a lawful source. Unless there are suspicious circumstances, showing that the funds came from the claimant's bank account would ordinarily suffice to meet this standard.

Tamara transferred USD 99,000 on 3 May 2022 into the HSBC Account, as reflected in the bank statement dated 4 May 2022. The transaction slip showed the funds were sent from Tamara's Columbia Bank account, and HSBC's transaction records confirmed the transfer. She was a victim of a Facebook scam.

Regarding Lawrence, the HSBC account’s transaction records show that he sent USD 94,000 on 9 May 2022, having transferred the sum from his Level One Bank account on 6 May 2022. Lawrence's domestic report corroborates this. He too was a victim of fraud, deceived by a scammer impersonating a bank officer.

Both claimants are fraud victims, and there was no evidence of suspicious circumstances surrounding the source of either party's funds. I am satisfied that both Tamara and Lawrence's estate satisfy the Lawful Possession Precondition.

Commingling

Counsel for Douglas submitted that Tamara's funds cannot be said to have been commingled with Lawrence's USD 94,000 because, by the time Lawrence's transfer was received on 9 May 2022, the funds originally deposited by Tamara and the two non-claimants had already been withdrawn from the HSBC Account, leaving only a residual balance of USD 2.99. On this basis, counsel argued that USD 94,000 of the USD 94,002.99 seized can be identified as directly and exclusively attributable to Lawrence, and that Tamara has not discharged her burden of showing that any part of the Seized Monies came from her account.

In my judgment, the concept of commingling should be understood in its ordinary sense: funds are commingled when they are mixed in a common pool such that the individual contributions of each depositor cannot be separately identified. This is precisely what occurred in the HSBC Account during the material period.

Tamara’s funds and the two non-claimants' funds deposited on 4 May 2022 were not kept separate. Upon receipt, these funds were commingled, converted into SGD, and transferred out the same day, with balances drawn down to USD 1.17. The converted SGD funds were transferred out, then returned to the HSBC Account, converted back into USD, and transferred out again. The residual balance of USD 2.99 that remained in the HSBC Account immediately before Lawrence's transfer was itself a product of this cycle of conversions and transfers involving the original deposits from Tamara and the two non-claimants. It cannot be said that Tamara's funds were entirely extinguished. USD 2.99 was already in the HSBC Account at the time of Lawrence's transfer, and that USD 2.99 was traceable to the monies transferred into the HSBC Account by Tamara and the two non-claimants, whose monies were commingled. Added to Lawrence’s transfer, the Seized Monies are therefore commingled funds to which both claimants in the present case have a claim.

Counsel for Douglas sought to characterise the USD 2.99 as de minimis and to be disregarded, and to argue that the Seized Monies are therefore attributable exclusively to Lawrence. I reject this argument for two reasons.

(a) First, the de minimis principle cannot be invoked to extinguish a claimant's proprietary interest in full. The USD 2.99 is not a rounding error. It is a traceable residue of the funds originally deposited by Tamara and the other depositors. However small, this residual balance means that the Seized Monies cannot be said to consist exclusively of Lawrence's funds.

(b) Second, and more fundamentally, the argument that Tamara's funds were entirely dissipated before Lawrence's transfer arrived misunderstands the concept of commingling. Tamara’s deposited funds did not simply disappear. They were converted, transferred, and partially returned to the HSBC Account in a series of transactions that ultimately left a residual balance of USD 2.99. That residual balance was then commingled with Lawrence's incoming USD 94,000 at the point of seizure. The Seized Monies are therefore a mixture of funds attributable to both Tamara and Lawrence, and it is not possible to say whether the entirety of the USD 94,002.99 is exclusively Lawrence's.

Notwithstanding this finding, I would find that the Seized Monies are commingled funds, even if the USD 2.99 was fully dissipated before Lawrence’s transfer into the HSBC account. In my view, commingling should not be confined to the simultaneous co-existence of funds. The correct approach is to consider the HSBC Account as a whole over the material period. What matters is whether each claimant contributed to the pool of funds that passed through the account during that period. On this approach, even if there were no residual balance of USD 2.99 at the time of Lawrence’s transfer, I would find that Tamara's contribution of USD 99,000 to the HSBC account during the material period gives her a claim.

Marlene Wise supports this analysis. In that case, the Court of Appeal held that the respondent satisfied the Lawful Possession Precondition and was entitled to the return of her USD 41,900, even though her funds had been entirely dissipated from the seized bank account before the seizure. The Court of Appeal did not hold that the respondent's claim failed because her funds were no longer traceable in the account at the time of seizure. Instead, it focused on whether the claimant had shown, on a prima facie basis, that the seized funds came from a lawful source and that she had transferred those funds into the account. Marlene Wise is therefore direct authority for the proposition that traceability at the moment of seizure is not a prerequisite to establishing entitlement.

The appropriate method of distribution

Having found that the Seized Monies constitute commingled funds to which both Tamara and Lawrence have a claim, I turn to the appropriate method of distribution. The Seized Monies total approximately USD 94,002.99, while the combined claims of Tamara (USD 99,000) and Lawrence (USD 94,000) amount to USD 193,000. In the present case, the Seized Monies are insufficient to fully satisfy both claimants’ interests.

The State does not take a position on the disposal of the Seized Monies but draws the Court's attention to the pari passu approach, first considered in PP v Elevate Hong Kong Holdings Limited [2023] SGDC 289 (“Elevate”) in the context of a disposal inquiry. In Elevate, the Court rejected the first-in, first-out (“FIFO”) method of distribution and applied the pari passu method instead. After the decision in Elevate, the Court of Appeal observed in Marlene Wise at [70]:

The State's view is that this passage in Marlene Wise, which sets out the pari passu method of distribution, applies to the present case involving commingled funds. I agree. Although the observations in Marlene Wise regarding the pari passu approach were made obiter dictum, they carry significant weight.

I adopt the pari passu method of distribution as the appropriate approach in this case for the following reasons:

(a) First, a disposal inquiry is not a civil trial. It is an inexpensive and expeditious mechanism for distributing seized property no longer required for investigations. The court applies a "rough and ready" approach and is not concerned with resolving complex questions of title or ownership, which are properly left to civil proceedings. Accordingly, the court should prefer a simple, fair, and practical method of distribution to one requiring elaborate tracing exercises.

(b) Second, I address the rolling charge approach, which counsel for Douglas urged as an alternative. This approach requires the court to recalculate each contributor's proportionate interest in the commingled fund at each withdrawal. While this method may yield a more precise result in some cases, it is ill-suited to the disposal inquiry context. It requires a transaction-by-transaction analysis of the fund flows through the HSBC Account and the outward transfers. This is precisely the kind of elaborate tracing exercise that the disposal inquiry process is designed to avoid. By contrast, the pari passu approach requires only that each claimant's total contributions be identified and that the Seized Monies be divided proportionately. This is consistent with the "rough and ready" character of disposal inquiries.

(c) Third, both Tamara and Lawrence are innocent victims of fraud. Neither bears any responsibility for the other’s loss. The fact that Lawrence's transfer arrived after Tamara's funds had largely been transferred out is a matter of timing and circumstance. It should not reflect any stronger legal entitlement on Lawrence's part. Awarding the entirety of the Seized Monies to Lawrence simply because his transfer was the last to arrive would elevate the accident of timing into a determinative legal principle. That would be neither fair nor consistent with the objectives of a disposal inquiry. As I observed in Elevate at [21], in my view, it would be unjust to apply the FIFO method of distribution in the present case when the pari passu method of distribution is available as a preferable alternative. The principle behind the pari passu approach is fairness between victims who are equally innocent and equally meritorious in their claims. Where funds are insufficient for distribution, no victim should be preferred over another simply because of the timing of their contribution. The pari passu rule achieves this by ensuring that each victim bears the shortfall in proportion to their stake.

I acknowledge the force of the observation in Pars Ram Brothers (Pte) Ltd v Australian & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd and Ors [2018] 4 SLR 1404 that the pari passu approach may be unfair to the most recent contributors, whose interests may be diminished. However, this concern must be weighed against the countervailing consideration that the rolling charge or FIFO distribution methods may be equally unfair to earlier contributors. In the present case, both claimants are fraud victims with equally meritorious claims. The pari passu approach treats them even-handedly by distributing the Seized Monies in proportion to their respective contributions, without privileging either the earlier or the later contributor.

(d) Fourth, this order adopting the pari passu method of distribution is not a final determination of the parties' civil rights. Both parties remain free to commence civil proceedings to assert any further claims. In the context of a disposal inquiry, the present order is made on a "rough and ready" basis and is not conclusive as to title.

The pari passu method of distribution

The Pari Passu method applies only between claimants who have independently satisfied the Lawful Possession Precondition

For completeness, I wish to address an important preliminary point about the proper scope of the pari passu method of distribution. In my judgment, the pari passu method of distribution does not operate as a general entitlement that accrues to all persons who may have deposited funds into a seized account. It applies only between claimants who have each independently satisfied the Lawful Possession Precondition. This is because each claimant bears the burden of establishing their own entitlement to the seized property, and the pari passu method is a method of distribution, not a substitute for proof of entitlement.

The starting point is that a disposal inquiry is not a process in which the court distributes seized property among all persons who may have had some connection to it. It is a process in which the court identifies the person or persons entitled to possession of the seized property and makes an appropriate order for its disposal. The claimant bears the burden of establishing this. It is not for the court to assume that a person is entitled to a share of the seized property simply because there is evidence that funds were deposited into the account from that person's account. The claimant must come forward and affirmatively establish their entitlement, whether through evidence adduced personally or through evidence in the Investigation Report adduced by the State. This burden falls on each claimant. The fact that one claimant has satisfied the Lawful Possession Precondition does not assist another claimant who has not done so. Equally, the fact that the State or the investigation officer identifies a person as a potential depositor does not relieve that person of the burden of establishing their own entitlement.

The pari passu method of distribution operates at a second, distinct stage of the inquiry. It addresses how the seized property should be distributed once the court has identified the body of claimants entitled to a share. It does not address the prior question of who is entitled to be included in that body of claimants. In other words, the pari passu method presupposes that the court has already determined, in respect of each claimant, that the Lawful Possession Precondition is satisfied. Only after this threshold determination has been made in respect of each claimant does the pari passu approach, which distributes the seized property proportionately according to each claimant's contribution, ignoring the dates of contribution, come into play. Applying the pari passu method without first requiring each claimant to satisfy the Lawful Possession Precondition would conflate two distinct stages of the inquiry. It would effectively allow a potential claimant to free-ride on the entitlement established by another claimant, without independently discharging the burden of proof. That would be inconsistent with the principle that each claimant bears their own burden of establishing entitlement to the seized property.

It follows from the above that the pool of assets to be distributed pari passu is defined by reference to the body of claimants who have satisfied the Lawful Possession Precondition, rather than by reference to all persons who may have deposited funds into the seized account.

In the present case, CAD has identified two other depositors into the HSBC Account, apart from Tamara and Lawrence. Neither has come forward to assert a claim to the Seized Monies. They have not satisfied, and indeed have not attempted to satisfy, the Lawful Possession Precondition. Accordingly, they are not part of the body of qualifying claimants, and their contributions are not to be included in the pari passu calculation. In my view, this is not merely a procedural point. It reflects the substantive principle that the pari passu method is a tool for achieving fairness among victims who have each established their entitlement to the seized property. It is not a mechanism for redistributing seized property among all depositors, regardless of whether they have established any entitlement. Including non-claimants, or claimants who have not satisfied the Lawful Possession Precondition, in the pari passu pool would dilute the shares of qualifying claimants without legal justification.

This analysis aligns with the language used in Marlene Wise at [70], where the Court of Appeal referred to the pari passu rule applying as a matter of fairness to "the whole body of victims". In my view, the reference to "victims" is not to all depositors or all persons with some connection to the account, but to those who have established that they were victims with a lawful claim to the seized property.

Applying these principles to the present case, the pari passu pool comprises Tamara and the estate of Lawrence, both of whom have satisfied the Lawful Possession Precondition for the reasons set out above. The other two non-claimants, having neither come forward nor established any entitlement, are excluded from the pool.

The Pari Passu method applies only in conditions of scarcity

As a final note, I turn to the appropriate method of distribution where the seized property is more than sufficient to satisfy the claims of all established claimants in full. In my judgment, where this is the case, each established claimant should receive the full amount of their established interest, and no more. The pari passu method of proportionate distribution has no role in such circumstances, because there is no shortfall to be shared among competing claimants.

It follows that the pari passu approach is a method of distribution in conditions of scarcity. It presupposes that the seized property is insufficient to satisfy all established claims in full, and it provides a principled basis for allocating the available property among competing claimants. Where there is no scarcity, that is, where the seized property is more than sufficient to satisfy all established claims, the pari passu method of distribution does not apply. No shortfall exists to share, and no basis exists for applying a proportionate reduction to any claimant's entitlement.

Where seized property exceeds established claims, established claimants are entitled to be satisfied in full but not beyond the extent of their established interest

Nevertheless, where the seized property exceeds the aggregate of all established claims, the correct approach is to satisfy each established claimant in full up to the amount of their established interest, and to treat the remainder as property to which no claimant has established an entitlement. There are two reasons:

(a) First, the proposition that each established claimant should be satisfied in full follows directly from the nature of the Lawful Possession Precondition. A claimant who has satisfied the Lawful Possession Precondition has, on a prima facie basis, established entitlement to possession of the seized property to the extent of their contribution. There is no principled reason to award such a claimant less than the full amount of their established interest. To do so would deprive the claimant of property to which they have established an entitlement, without any legal justification.

(b) Second, the proposition that no claimant should receive more than the extent of their established interest is equally important. A claimant's entitlement is defined by what they have established under the Lawful Possession Precondition, namely the amount they contributed to the seized account from a lawful source. A claimant has no basis for claiming more than this amount, and awarding more would confer a windfall unsupported by any established entitlement.

This principle applies with equal force regardless of the number of established claimants. Whether there are multiple claimants or only a single claimant, the analysis remains the same. Each claimant is entitled to the full amount of their established interest, and no more. The sole claimant's entitlement is defined and limited by what they have established under the Lawful Possession Precondition. That entitlement does not expand simply because the seized property exceeds it, or because no other claimant has come forward. Awarding the sole claimant more than their established interest would treat the disposal inquiry as a mechanism for conferring a windfall on the claimant, which is not its purpose.

The correct approach, therefore, is to award the sole claimant the full amount of their established interest and to treat the remainder as property to which no entitlement has been established in the disposal inquiry.

Conclusion

As the Seized Monies in the present case are insufficient to satisfy the claims of both claimants’ interests in full, I therefore apply the pari passu method of distribution to the body of known claimants in the present case who have come forward and satisfied the Lawful Possession Precondition, namely Tamara and the estate of the late Lawrence.

The pari passu distribution is therefore calculated based solely on the contributions of Tamara and Lawrence, namely USD 99,000 and USD 94,000, respectively, out of a combined total of USD 193,000. On this basis, Tamara is entitled to 51.30% of the Seized Monies, and Lawrence's estate is entitled to 48.70%.

Orders

I issue the following disposal orders:

(a) The Seized Monies to be converted to USD at the prevailing exchange rate at the time of conversion, and the entire sum to be distributed in proportions of 51.3% to Tamara and 48.7% to Lawrence’s estate; and

(b) Remittance fees, if any, are to be deducted from the respective sums to be transferred to each claimant.

Kenneth ChinDistrict Judge