Court delays hearing for Singapore‑based Malaysian F1 tycoon Ong Beng Seng in ex-minister’s corruption case

By Dat Nguyen July 2, 2025 | 01:19 am PT

Ong Beng Seng, the Singapore-based Malaysian tycoon behind the city-state’s Formula One race, has had his court hearing postponed to July 8 in a high-profile corruption case involving former transport minister S. Iswaran.

The hearing was originally scheduled for July 3, when Ong was scheduled to plead guilty, but was rescheduled on Wednesday without explanation, according to a notice from Singapore Courts.

Ong, 79, was charged in October last year with abetting a public official in accepting gifts and with attempting to obstruct justice.

Malaysian hotel tycoon Ong Beng Seng leaves the State Court in Singapore on October 4, 2024. Photo by AFP

The charges concern Ong’s arrangement to pay for former transport minister S. Iswaran’s flights and hotel during a trip from Singapore to Doha in 2022.

The total covered cost was SGD20,850 (US$16,200).

It included transporting Iswaran on Ong’s private plane to Doha, giving him a one-night stay at the Four Seasons Hotel Doha, and returning him to Singapore on a business-class flight.

Ong later allegedly informed Iswaran that the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau had obtained the flight manifest for the December 2022 trip, and urged Iswaran to request that Ong bill him for the flight to evade scrutiny.

For this act, Ong was charged with abetting the obstruction of justice.

In the mid-2000s, Ong, who at the time was the managing director of property developer Hotel Properties Ltd which owns the Four Seasons in Singapore, and Iswaran collaborated to persuade then Formula One Group chief executive Bernie Ecclestone to host the sport’s inaugural night race in Singapore. Ong stepped down from his director position in April this year.

In October last year, Iswaran received a 12-month prison sentence after pleading guilty to five charges, including accepting valuable items as a public servant from Ong and David Lum Kok Seng, managing director of Lum Chang Holdings.

Ong and his wife Christina were worth US$1.7 billion in Forbes’ billionaire list last year. They, however, were not included in this year’s list.

Ong has been receiving chemotherapy treatment for bone marrow cancer. in April he was granted permission to travel overseas for medical purposes, having paid US$1.2 million in bail.