//// Investment WINE tUrned SOUR in STORAGE

Tussle over wine set to turn sour

Teo Xuanwei

xuanwei@mediacorp.com.sg

SINGAPORE

This, at a time when the warehouse operator is also seeking the court’s permission to sell the thousands of bottles of Australian wine which AWM had placed with it.

MediaCorp broke the story of AWM’s sudden closure on June 30.

The following month, hundreds of AWM customers — with investments totalling hundreds of thousands of dollars — tried to retrieve their wines from Trident Districentre.

But the logistics company, located in Toh Guan Road East, turned them away because the police were investigating the case.

It is unclear how many bottles of wine are in its warehouse.

Now, Trident Districentre, which AWM is believed to owe large amounts of rent, is seeking to sell the wine.

AWM customer Lim Pek Kueen, however, is contesting that she is the “legal and beneficial owner” of her wines in the Districentre.

She is represented by TSMP Law Corporation.

The case is expected to be heard next month.

AWM was run by husband-and-wife team Benny Lee Ghim Seng and Kally Quee Yen Ping, who are believed to have fled the country days after aggressively wooing customers to pump in more money.

The five-year-old firm purportedly had some 1,000 customers whose investments amounted to $10 million.

Other AWM investors whom MediaCorp spoke to said they, too, hope to reclaim their wine.

One of them, who declined to be named, said: “We invested so much money for the wine, it’s only right we get them back. It’s the only way we can cut some of our losses.”— At least one customer of shuttered wine investment firm Assets Wine Management (AWM) has gone to the High Court to recover her wine that have been locked up in a warehouse since June.