Singapore names two former Noble directors who got accounting warnings

Singapore has named the two former directors of a Noble Group Ltd. unit who were cautioned over the company's misleading accounts as Neil Dhar and Tim Eyre.

Last week, Singapore's regulators fined the collapsed commodity trader S$12.6 million ($9 million) after a four-year probe, and said that two former directors had been issued with "stern warnings," but did not initially name them. On Wednesday, the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority said while not revealing the names was in line with the legal processes for case investigations, it was open to sharing them "if necessary."

"The two directors who received stern warnings were Neil Timothy Dhar and Timothy Martin Eyre," a spokesperson for ACRA said in response to questions from Bloomberg News.

Noble Group booklets
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Noble collapsed into insolvency in 2018 after huge losses and accusations of improper accounting wiped out more than $10 billion in market capitalization.

Arnaud Vagner, a former Noble employee who, writing under the name "Iceberg Research," first publicly accused Noble of inflating its profits in 2015, earlier this week criticized the Singaporean investigation. The small size of the fine and the fact that the Noble directors had not been named showed that regulators were "happy to sweep the matter under the carpet," he said.

Dhar and Eyre are both former directors of Noble Resources International Pte, the Singaporean unit through which the company conducted much of its trading.

Dhar is Noble's former chief operating officer. After leaving Noble, he joined Citic Commodities Pte, from which he retired as a director in June this year, according to a filing.

Eyre is Noble's former legal counsel. Last year, he joined Adnoc Global Trading as general counsel, according to his LinkedIn profile. A spokesperson for Adnoc declined to comment. 

Neither man responded immediately to attempts to contact them for comment.

Bloomberg News
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