SINGAPORE — Singapore property tycoon Ching Chiat Kwong is bankrolling one of the largest commercial lawsuits in Australian legal history: a claim seeking about US$1 billion from banks and insurers accused of pulling funding from Australian satellite company NewSat, whose flagship Jabiru-1 satellite never launched.
NewSat, an ASX-listed satellite communications company founded in 1987, had planned for Jabiru-1 to be built by Lockheed Martin and launched from Arianespace's facility in French Guiana at an estimated total cost of US$600 million. It had forward-sold about US$700 million of the satellite's capacity before its collapse. The company entered administration on April 17, 2015 and went into full liquidation on August 7, 2015.
The case is brought by NewSat's liquidator, Glenn Livingstone of WLP Restructuring, and funded by Ching, the executive chairman of Singapore-listed Oxley Holdings. Ching says he invested US$100 million of his own money in NewSat — including US$60 million in 2013 for a 30 per cent equity stake — and has committed between S$7 million and S$8 million to legal costs, pledging a further A$20 million to see the case through. Quinn Emanuel is representing the plaintiff alongside King's Counsel Philip Crutchfield and Martin Scott.
The trial, which began on April 21, 2026 in the Supreme Court of Victoria, names five defendants: lenders Societe Generale, Credit Suisse (now owned by UBS) and Standard Chartered, and credit insurers the Export-Import Bank of the United States (Ex-Im Bank) and Coface of France. Ex-Im Bank had approved a direct loan of US$281 million, later raised to US$300.5 million, to NewSat's Jabiru subsidiary, with Coface as guarantor. Total funding raised by NewSat across the facilities was about US$600 million.
The liquidator's case is that the lenders and insurers wrongfully withdrew support for the satellite project, destroying the company and wiping out its creditors and shareholders. The defendants are expected to argue they acted within their rights under the financing arrangements.
Ching built Oxley into one of Singapore's most aggressive overseas property developers, and his willingness to spend millions of his personal fortune pursuing the NewSat claim has made him the public face of the litigation. The case is being closely watched by project-finance lawyers across Asia and Australia, as it tests the limits of lender liability when syndicated financing for mega-projects falls apart mid-construction.
The personal dimension is striking. Ching says he committed US$100 million of his own money to NewSat, including US$60 million in 2013 for a 30 per cent equity stake — a bet that was wiped out when the company collapsed. His funding of the liquidator's case, with S$7 million to S$8 million already committed to legal costs and a further A$20 million pledged, means the litigation will be pursued with resources few liquidators could normally command. Represented by Quinn Emanuel with senior Australian counsel, the plaintiff's team has framed the case as a reckoning for lenders who, it alleges, walked away from a viable project. The defendants — Societe Generale, UBS-owned Credit Suisse, Standard Chartered, the US Ex-Im Bank and France's Coface — are expected to argue they acted within their contractual rights. With total funding across the facilities at about US$600 million and US$700 million of satellite capacity pre-sold, the trial's outcome will resonate far beyond one failed satellite.