Our recent article Wrongful dismissal, first of two July 2024 cases recounted the case of Tan Zhengchun whose employer demanded that he work unreasonably long hours in violation of law. When Tan refused, he was fired.

There was a subplot to that story which we didn’t include in that article because we didn’t want to complicate the main story with too many side issues. That subplot concerned the In-principle Approval for a Work Permit (IPA), a document that was issued by the Ministry of Manpower, and which Tan had in hand. An IPA letter confirms that a Work Permit will be available to a worker when he arrives in Singapore for a specified job. Anyone coming into Singapore to work should have such an IPA. Moreover, the document includes useful details such as the employer’s name and salary details. It is thus key to knowing what any worker’s terms of employment are and, at TWC2, we always ask to look at a client’s IPA at the very start of any consultation.

Since we have seen countless IPAs, we have a very good sense of what the format and appearance of a genuine IPA looks like. Tan’s looked suspicious.

At the bottom left corner of a key page in the IPA, the name of the Singapore agent and the amount charged by the agent are declared. That’s the standard format. But when we looked at the IPA that Tan had, it was blank where the agent’s name should be.

However, Tan told us there definitely was a local agent involved. In describing how he was hired, Tan, while still in China, had a video call with the Singapore agent. Then when the employer decided to fire him, it was the same agent who attended to the details. And yet, the local agent was not named on the IPA document.

Not long after we began working on this case, the local agent even came to TWC2’s office in an attempt to convince us that Tan’s complaint was without merit. The agent was not trying to conceal his identity; that much was obvious.

It didn’t bother Tan Zhengchun that his IPA was missing an important detail but, at TWC2, we were nevertheless interested if the tampering went beyond the erasure of the Singapore agent’s name from the document. Were other details also modified? Even if the other details were not in Tan’s case, might tampering become a more widespread practice in time such that it begins to mislead other workers about their terms of employment? It was therefore important to nip this in the bud. We decided to flag this IPA up to the Ministry of Manpower, asking them to investigate why Tan’s IPA was missing the local agent’s name.

The Regulations

Regulations exist to prevent this kind of malpractice. The locus of responsibility is on the employer, who has to ensure that the IPA “in its entirety” has to reach the hands of the foreign worker.

Employment of Foreign Manpower Regulations 2012, First Schedule, Part II:

1. The employer must take all necessary steps to ensure that the foreign employee’s copy of the in-principle approval letter, in its entirety as provided by the Ministry of Manpower, is received by the foreign employee at least 3 days before the foreign employee’s departure for Singapore.

1A. For the purposes of paragraph 1, the employer will be regarded as having taken all necessary steps —

(a) where the employer does not engage the service of an employment agency — if the employer can provide sufficient evidence that the foreign employee has received, at least 3 days before the foreign employee’s departure for Singapore, the foreign employee’s copy of the in‑principle approval letter, in its entirety as furnished by the Ministry of Manpower; or

(b) where the employer engages the services of an employment agency — if the employer can provide sufficient evidence that the employment agency informed the employer that the foreign employee has received, at least 3 days before the foreign employee’s departure for Singapore, the foreign employee’s copy of the in‑principle approval letter, in its entirety as furnished by the Ministry of Manpower.

In Tan’s case, the (b) limb of Section 1A applies since his employer had a local licensed employment agency recruiting on his behalf. This limb of the Regulations requires the employer to have sufficient evidence that the employment agency had assured the employer that the IPA (in its entirety) had been transmitted to the foreign worker.

However, in a case like this, when there is objective evidence that Tan received a tampered IPA, then one of two scenarios must apply:

1. The employer did not do due diligence, and did not obtain confirmation from the agent that the IPA in its entirety had been delivered to the worker prior to departure from China; or

2. the employer did get assurances from the agent – assurances that on face value might have looked trustworthy – that the IPA in its entirety had reached the worker, but those assurances were false.

We heard back from MOM in due course, with their finding that the Singapore agent had transmitted the original version of the IPA to Tan’s agent in China. The doctored copy was given to Tan by the Chinese agent. That being the case, it was beyond their enforcement jurisdiction, MOM said.

Then the law is as good as binned

It is disappointing that this seems to be where it will end. If we take the position that any foreign agent can modify any IPA issued by MOM with impunity, then the door is wide open to misrepresentation of the terms of employment. The whole intent of the Regulations – that workers should know what they are getting into – is defeated.

We would argue that MOM is interpreting the Regulations in too lax a manner. Whilst in practical terms, it is true that the Singapore government can hardly expect to haul a foreign agency to court, it is also why the law is written the way it is: holding the employer responsible for the entire transmission chain.

Section 1A(a) says that the employer needs to “provide sufficient evidence that the foreign employee has received” the IPA. Note: Foreign employee, not that the foreign agent has received it. When there is objective evidence that a worker did not receive the IPA in its entirety (as in this case), then the employer should be held responsible and the penalties in the Regulations should apply.

And in the case where a local employment agent was involved, and the agent gave assurances to the employer that turned out to be false, then we should hold the local agent to account for the false assurances.

Otherwise there is nothing stopping employers from using this defence (“the foreign agent did it”) the next time another worker is duped, e.g. over his salary. It would be the easiest thing in the world for the employer to send the IPA to the foreign agent, and then in a voice call, tell the agent to make changes to it in order to mislead the worker. Voice calls seldom leave evidence.

For the law to be meaningful, we should focus on outcomes, and not let easy deniability foster a culture of impunity.

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