SINGAPORE: The police are investigating oBike Singapore for misappropriation of funds, after it emerged last month that the company transferred S$10 million to its Hong Kong office before shutting operations in Singapore.

In a written parliamentary reply on Monday (Sep 10), Law and Home Affairs Minister K Shanmugam confirmed that the police are looking into the matter.



"As investigations are ongoing, we are unable to comment further," he said.



Mr Shanmugam was responding to a question filed by the Workers' Party's Non-Constituency Member of Parliament Dennis Tan, who asked if oBike Singapore will be investigated by the Commercial Affairs Department.



Last month, oBike's liquidators FTI Consulting said that of the S$12 million the bicycle-sharing company had collected from Singapore users, S$10 million was transferred to its Hong Kong office before it stopped Singapore operations in June.

The S$10 million was netted off against a loan of S$11 million from oBike Hong Kong to its Singapore office.



“Some of the transactions are inappropriate given the financial position of the company, and we will be looking at those a lot further,” FTI Consulting’s senior managing director Joshua Taylor said previously.



According to Mr Taylor, oBike owes its Singapore users S$8.9 million in total.

The liquidators said previously it will issue letters of demand to oBike founder Shi Yi and ask for the money to be returned.

