SINGAPORE – The liquidators of a Singapore company caught in the Wirecard scandal have been barred from using millions in frozen funds to bankroll future lawsuits, which a High Court judge said have poor prospects of success.
Instead, the liquidators of oCap Management should focus on winding up the company and “distribute what remains of the company’s assets to its creditors”, said Justice Aiden Xu in a written judgment delivered on May 13. “That is all they should do.”
But Justice Xu allowed the release of about $178,560 for fees already incurred for additional work carried out by the liquidators and their solicitors from Jan 1, 2024 to May 31, 2025.
Business records show oCap Management, formally known as Senjo Trading, was incorporated in Singapore in 2015 and is currently in compulsory liquidation. Its registered business activities include data analytics and international trade financing.
The case centres on an application by the liquidators of oCap Management to access funds frozen under a court restraint order linked to criminal proceedings in Germany over the collapse of payments firm Wirecard AG, once one of Germany’s biggest financial technology companies.
German authorities are seeking a confiscation order over assets allegedly tied to the proceeds of crime obtained by oCap Management.
German prosecutors alleged €210 million (S$313 million) in loans from companies within the Wirecard group had been channelled to oCap Management and used to disguise Wirecard’s true financial position and divert money out of the group.
Following a request from Germany, Singapore’s Attorney-General applied in 2023 for a restraint order preventing the company and Citibank from dealing with money held in oCap Management’s two bank accounts here.
The liquidators later sought permission in the current application, which commenced in December 2025, to use about $3 million from the company’s frozen bank accounts to pursue two proposed future litigation claims worth around $12 million in total.
One involves a proposed claim over allegedly questionable dividend declarations worth about $10.1 million, while another is related to a $1.95 million asset disposal agreement.
In 2024, the court had allowed the liquidators to access more than $925,000 to cover past fees and costs incurred by liquidators and their solicitors, but the recent separate request for future litigation funding was rejected.
Justice Xu stressed that where criminal restraint orders are involved, insolvency proceedings may have to take a back seat to criminal enforcement efforts.
“If there is any contest or tension between the criminal process and the insolvency process, the latter must generally give way to the former, especially if there is some element of risk or uncertainty in respect of the actions proposed by the liquidators,” he wrote.
On the future litigation funding request, Justice Xu said there were “serious doubts” over the prospects of success and noted that multiple litigation funders had declined to back the claims.
“The consistent rejection by multiple sophisticated commercial funders suggests that the claims are viewed as either lacking in merit or having poor prospects of actual recovery,” he wrote.
The judge also questioned the economics of an existing funding arrangement oCap Management has with Athos Asia Event Driven Master Fund, saying the deal indicated the litigation carried “a high degree of risk”.
Under the arrangement, Athos would finance oCap Management’s application to access frozen funds, with Athos entitled to returns if the bid and future claims succeeded.
Justice Xu added that the liquidators’ proposed course of action amounted to “a risky and unsubstantiated course of action, with only a forlorn hope of recovery”.
The judgment also noted that entities within the Wirecard group are major creditors of oCap Management and had previously funded parts of the liquidation process and investigations into the company’s affairs.
However, Justice Xu said those creditors ultimately declined to provide further funding for the proposed claims despite potentially benefiting from any successful recovery, which “speaks volumes about the prospects of these claims succeeding”.
Wirecard collapsed into insolvency in 2020 after disclosing that €1.9 billion, which was supposed to be in trustee bank accounts in The Philippines holding the money on behalf of Wirecard AG, did not exist.
The scandal became one of Europe’s largest corporate fraud cases and led to criminal investigations and prosecutions in Germany, alleging that senior executives had orchestrated a long-running fraud that concealed holes in the business.
According to the May 13 Singapore High Court judgment, German authorities began criminal proceedings in March 2022 against former Wirecard chief executive Markus Braun and others over alleged offences involving the company and its subsidiaries.
