Yeo Yao Hui, Charles (Yang Yaohui)

Findings — machine-extracted (anthropic-batch:claude-opus-4-8); verify against the decision

In five consolidated applications, the Court of 3 Supreme Court Judges affirmed the disciplinary tribunals' convictions of Mr Charles Yeo Yao Hui on four categories of charges: (1) 185 breaches of the Solicitors' Accounts Rules through mismanagement of client moneys at Whitefield Law Corporation; (2) grossly negligent handling of three migrant workers' workplace injury suits, failing to verify their identities/instructions, over-relying on a third party (Mr Ranjit), and disbursing settlement sums such that the workers received little or nothing; (3) court conduct charges arising from an abuse of process in filing a judicial review application repeating rejected grounds and making dishonest misrepresentations to Ramesh J (one intentional, two reckless) regarding distinct subject matter, an undisputed IQ of 67, and a purported SPS policy against executing mentally disabled prisoners; and (4) social media charges including scandalising contempt of the judiciary, baseless attacks on the AGC, sub judice contempt, and discourteous personal attacks on fellow lawyers. The court made an express finding of dishonesty on the court conduct charges. Finding serious defects of character rendering the respondent wholly unfit to remain in the profession, and no mitigating factors, the court ordered him struck off the roll. The respondent had fled to the UK seeking asylum and boycotted the proceedings. Costs were left for the Society to apply; no fine was imposed in these applications (a prior separate DT had fined him $10,000).

Duties found breached:

• Not mislead the court
• No abuse of process or coercive powers
• No prejudicial publicity for pending cases
• No conflict between current clients
• No improper use of client money
• Supervise staff and delegated work
• Report serious misconduct of others
• No baseless or threatened misconduct report

Aggravating factors:

• Systemic and repeated nature of misconduct (185 SAR breaches over roughly one year)
• Large sums compromised (e.g. over $896,600 in cash cheque withdrawals; $300,760 misdirected to office account)
• Vulnerability of victims - migrant worker clients deprived of most/all of their settlement sums
• Dishonesty impinging on the administration of justice
• Total absence of remorse or contrition; no apology or reparation
• Refusal to participate in DT and C3J proceedings
• Continued baseless attacks on the Law Society, disciplinary tribunals and the court during proceedings
• Broader sustained social media campaign vilifying the judiciary and AGC (including uncharged 25 April 2022 post)

Mitigating factors:

• No prior antecedents (treated as a neutral factor, not genuinely mitigating)