appeal to the UK Privy Council except for criminal cases involving the death penalty or in civil cases where the parties had agreed to such a right of appeal. On 16 September 1989, he was convicted and sentenced to 12 months’ imprisonment by the district court judge for violating the Securities Industry Act. The imprisonment term was suspended pending appeal. In 1991, he was successful in his appeal to the High Court, which set aside the sentence of imprisonment and instead imposed a fine of S$50,000. The High Court Judge, M. Karthigesu, accepted Allan Ng's counsel, Mr Michael Sherrard QC's submission that a custodial sentence was inappropriate, unnecessary and excessive because of the very unusual circumstances of this case. Judge Karthigesu also accepted the submission that this case was "very unlike the more usual case of insider dealing where dishonest financial plunder was the object". He highlighted that there was no evidence that Allan Ng or FCI were out to make a "killing" as there was "no attempt made by Allan Ng to sell the 1 million shares in the first week after the lifting of suspension when the price went up to about 77 cents". In 1992, Allan Ng and his family emigrated to Vancouver, Canada following their successful application for permanent residence. The Canadian Immigration and the Justice Ministry held that the conviction in Singapore did not render Allan Ng an "inadmissible person" under the Canadian Immigration Act and hence granted him and his family permanent residence status. In early 1994, Mr. Robert Kuok, Chairman of the Kerry Group (a conglomerate which owned the Shangri-La hotels, properties, media, and palm oil plantations, etc.) invited Allan Ng to join the Kerry Group. He was appointed Chairman of Kerry Properties, a major public listed company in Hong Kong, and also Vice-Chairman of Kerry Holdings Limited. In 1999, he left the Kerry Group to start his own investment firm, Newmark Capital Corporation Limited ("Newmark Capital"). Newmark Capital's investments included an 11% stake in CyberCity Holdings ("CyberCity"), which developed the Shenzhen CyberCity Business Park as well as a business park in Beijing (a joint venture with Tsinghua University) in 2000. Newmark Capital was the second largest shareholder in CyberCity after Dr. Simon Jiang, founder and largest shareholder. Other substantial shareholders in CyberCity included Singapore's Temasek Holdings, Ascendas Pte Ltd (a wholly owned subsidiary of Singapore's Jurong Town Corporation) and Fraser & Neave