Granddaughter of Singapore disgraced oil tycoon OK Lim fails to block creditor’s access to $400,000 insurance policies

High Court Judicial Commissioner Mohamed Faizal has rejected Michelle Lim’s application for a declaration that the three insurance policies are held in trust solely for her benefit by her father, Lim Chee Meng, who was declared bankrupt in December 2024, according to The Business Times.

Lim Oon Kuin, popularly known as O.K. Lim, speaks during an interview in 2013. Photo by Reuters

The policies are among eight AIA insurance policies the father took out when Michelle was a minor, with him as the policy owner and her as the named insured.

But the court has ruled there was insufficient evidence of the father’s intent, prior to his bankruptcy, to establish a trust for his daughter’s sole benefit over the three policies.

The court dismissed Michelle’s argument that her father intended to hold the policies in trust for her until she turned 21, after which he would transfer them to her name.

Lim Oon Kuin, along with his son Chee Meng and daughter Lim Huey Ching, were declared bankrupt last year following settlements in two lawsuits filed by oil trading giant Hin Leong’s liquidators and HSBC against the Lim family, according to The Straits Times.

The Lim family were given the option for a third party to pay the policies’ surrender value, over SGD521,000 as of January 16, to the trustees of the bankruptcy estates. The Lims, however, rejected the proposal.

Hin Leong was among Asia's biggest oil trading companies before its sudden collapse in 2020.

Lim Oon Kuin was given 17 and a half years in jail for orchestrating one of the most serious cases of trade financing fraud in Singapore, according to prosecutors.