Prosecutors closed their 54-day criminal case against Hyflux founder Olivia Lum and five others over alleged failures to disclose the Tuaspring project's dependence on electricity sales and volatile power prices, bringing one of Singapore's longest-running corporate trials to a pivotal moment. The prosecution's case closed on September 29, 2026, after 59 weeks of proceedings during which 22 witnesses were called in relation to the collapse of the water treatment firm, one of the country's largest corporate scandals.
The case centred on the Tuaspring integrated water and power project, which Hyflux won in 2011 with the lowest submitted bid: a first-year water tariff of 45 cents per cubic metre to PUB, undercutting competitors by at least 27 percent. According to the prosecution, led by Deputy Chief Prosecutor Christopher Ong, the bid was won on terms that meant the plant would operate at a loss on water sales alone, and Lum, determined to win the project, intentionally failed to disclose material information, including the fact that its profitability hinged on electricity sales, because she feared doing so would deter investors. Witnesses included former Hyflux staff involved in preparing corporate announcements and bank representatives who had negotiated Tuaspring's financing.
The stakes could hardly be higher. Hyflux's collapse left about 34,000 investors, holders of its perpetual securities and preference shares, nursing losses of roughly S$900 million. The company was placed under judicial management in November 2020 and wound up in 2021, and the trial has become a referendum on disclosure standards for listed companies in Singapore.
On October 21, the defence, led by Senior Counsel Davinder Singh, was expected to indicate whether it would submit that there was no case to answer. The trial has already underscored the risks of project-finance complexity, the dangers of aggressive bidding, and the need for stronger investor-protection regulations. For the retail investors who lost their savings, many of them elderly Singaporeans who had treated Hyflux's instruments as safe income products, the closing of the prosecution's case was another milestone in a saga that has dragged on for the better part of a decade, with the question of accountability still to be decided.
The trial marked a stunning reversal for a woman once celebrated as one of Singapore's great entrepreneurial success stories. Olivia Lum founded Hyflux in 1989 and transformed it into a leading integrated water and power solutions provider, expanding aggressively at home and abroad on the strength of her vision. As the company buckled under the weight of the Tuaspring losses, she stepped down from her executive roles during the painful restructuring process, and her appearance in the dock represented a dramatic turning point in a storied career. Whatever the outcome when the defence presents its case, the proceedings have already underscored the risks of project-finance complexity, the consequences of disclosure failures, and the need for stronger investor-protection regulations, lessons bought at the cost of S$900 million in retail savings.