Singapore’s Media Development Authority (MDA) is seeking to recover S$27.5 million ($21.8 million) from RGM Group, the Australian talent management and executive production firm.
RGM’s Australian Stock Exchange listed parent, now known as One North Entertainment, has acknowledged the dispute and revealed that the MDA has an injunction freezing its assets in Singapore.
Now, further details are set to emerge following preliminary court proceedings in Singapore and local disclosures.
Hearings in Singapore’s Supreme Court took place on Monday and Tuesday last week involving three cases in which the MDA is the plaintiff and Devesh CHETTY (pictured), RGM’s former managing director, the defendant. In two cases Chetty appeared in person. In a third, his private company Montrose Holdings was represented by a lawyer.
The MDA is trying to recover money it advanced to RGM, with which it had five separate agreements between 2005 and 2010.
The MDA provided RGM with S$2.5 million ($1.98 million) in 2005 in part to attract the company to the country.
In 2008, the MDA provided it with S$10 million as seed money for a film production fund that RGM announced would be worth $300 million over five years.
In 2010 (a year after it was criticised by the Auditor General for poor management of public funds) the MDA struck two further agreements with RGM. These were billed as joint venture vehicles with Sony Pictures Entertainment (with S$10 million of MDA seed capital) and with Fox International Pictures (with S$5 million of MDA seed capital), part of 20th Century Fox.
The production fund did not materialise and RGM did not secure its position as an investor alongside either FIP or Sony.
Last year RGM missed the scheduled first repayment of a S$2.5 million loan. A replacement cheque was issued by Chetty’s Montrose Holdings. It has been reported that this cheque subsequently bounced.
The MDA subsequently cancelled its agreements with RGM and succeeded in winning a summary judgement against RGM.
One North, however, has asked for the two cases to be set aside as they relate to deals conducted by Chetty, who is no longer a company director, and involved private companies controlled by him.
The MDA has refused media comment, arguing that legal proceedings are ongoing.
*Article first appeared on http://www.filmbiz.asia/news/mda-seeking-22-million-from-rgm