Nothing Wrong, No Crime Committed

When former Nominated Member of Parliament (NMP) Calvin Cheng was found guilty by the Competition Commission of Singapore (CCS) for price-fixing in November 2011, he was the President of the Association of Modelling Industry Professionals (AMIP). Cheng justified his sins by claiming that even Microsoft and Bill Gates have been fined for price-fixing. Ergo, it was no big deal since he was in good company.

CCS had determined 11 modelling agencies were guilty of price-fixing. They used AMIP as a “front” for collusion in 2005 and Calvin Cheng had “played a central role in coordinating the actions of AMIP members“ and ran afoul of the Competition Act which came into force the next year.

Lance Armstrong was similarly unrepentant when he told BBC sports editor, Dan Roan, that if he were in the same position as he was 20 years ago, he would again dope to win bike races. The disgraced Armstrong was stripped of his seven Tour de France titles in 2012 in the wake of the doping scandal and banned from professional cycling for life.

According to the Cycling Independent Reform Commission (CIRC) which published its damning 227-page report in March 2015, 90 per cent of the peloton is still doping in one form or another today. The CIRC report stopped short of accusing two former International Cycling Union (UCI) presidents of outright corruption, for colluding with Lance Armstrong and other cycling stars to cover up drug cheating. No wonder Armstrong was so cocky, he had the big boys watching his back.

In 2001, the Development Bank of Singapore (DBS) took the unusal step to correct information regarding the academic record of its Chief Executive Officer, Philippe Paillart, after the Asian Wall Street Journal asked Harvard Business School about his "postgraduate degree". The error in the annual report - - which was signed by all five members of DBS's corporate office including Mr Paillart - was amended and Paillart, a French national, said that he has plenty of other degrees, he did not need to make up such qualifications.

The Indian national turned Singaporean employed by Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA) - the one with an MBA from  degree mill Southern Pacific University (SPU) - can sleep easy. The law is only harsh if you are not going with the flow.