He owns a well-known Indian restaurant that has been operating for more than 20 years
Mr V Maheyndran, the semi-retired owner of the restaurants Samy's Curry (Dempsey) and Samy's Curry (Tessensohn), wanted to expand his business.
So he set up a catering arm called Samy's Curry Restaurant and signed a letter of offer to rent a unit at Superbowl Jurong.
But he backed out of the deal and the company ended up being sued. It did not pay up and on Monday, the High Court ordered it to be placed under judicial management.
This means that instead of winding up the business, a judicial manager nominated by the creditor or debtor will go through the company's financial statements and work out a plan to settle its debts.
Samy's lawyer, Mr Salem Ibrahim, told The New Paper that business at Samy's two restaurants at Dempsey Road and Tessensohn Road were not affected by the ruling.
Mr Maheyndran said that his wife and children run the two restaurants.
Samy's catering arm owed about $268,000 to several creditors, including $130,000 to Superbowl Jurong, the company from which it was supposed to lease a unit.
The other creditors were Standard Chartered Bank, Raffles Accounting Services, Raffles Secretarial and a business partner.
The court was told that in July 2005, Mr Maheyndran wanted to lease a unit at Superbowl Jurong in Yuan Ching Road.
Mr R Chandra Mohan, Superbowl's lawyer, said the lease was for three years.
On 1 Aug that year, Mr Maheyndran and his wife visited Mr Roland Teo, Superbowl's managing director, in his office.
In his affidavit, Mr Teo said Mr Maheyndran signed the letter of offer and paid a $11,500 deposit. He told Mr Maheyndran that the letter was binding as soon as he signed it. Later that month, Mr Teo said he received a call from Mr Maheyndran, who told him he had changed his mind.
Mr Teo also received a letter from Mr Maheyndran dated 28Sep that year indicating that he no longer wanted to lease the place.
Mr Maheyndran's affidavit stated that he backed out of the deal because he felt that Superbowl was not a good place to do business.
New tenants
Superbowl found new tenants within five months but it took legal action to make Samy's pay the rent.
Mr Maheyndran's case was that there had never been any binding tenancy agreement.
Last year, the High Court issued summary judgment in favour of Superbowl.
Samy's appeal failed and on 7Jul, the High Court ruled that it had to pay $130,000 to Superbowl.
On 18Aug, Mr Maheyndran applied for Samy's to come under judicial management.
During the hearing on 8Sep, Justice Andrew Ang asked why Samy's catering arm should not be wound up instead.
Mr Salem said this was because accountants had assessed the financial statements of the company's catering arm for the past year and found that it had monthly sales of $61,000.
He said the company was likely to be profitable and in time, it could make enough money to settle all its outstanding debts.
Justice Ang ruled that Samy's be put under judicial management from 8Sep.
Mr Maheyndran declined to comment.
This article was first published in The New Paper on September 10.
