Nearly two decades ago, Harpreet Nehal Singh — Harvard-educated, mentored by legal giant Davinder Singh, and bold enough to spar with Lee Kuan Yew on live television — sought entry into Singapore’s ruling elite.

Between 2005 to 2006, Harpreet met with the top brass of PAP's leadership - including multiple one-on-ones with Lee Hsien Loong, Tharman Shamugaratnam, S Jayakumar (then deputy prime minister) and the late Lee Kuan Yew.

As Jom confirms in a 2024 interview with Harpreet: “The cabinet deliberated” before rejecting him with the ambiguous, “There are different ways to contribute to this country.”

Now, at 59, Harpreet traded the establishment’s orbit for the opposition’s front line.

From PAP Aspirant to WP Member — or mole?

Harpreet's rejection didn’t end his political ambitions — he applied for an NMP role in 2007 but was again unsuccessful.

By the 2010s, Jom notes his growing disillusionment with PAP, mirrored by its declining vote share (75.3% in 2001 to 61.2% in 2020).

In 2021, he began volunteering with then - WP MP Leon Perera, and by 2023, he was seen in WP’s light blue uniform, engaging in walkabouts and Hammer newspaper sales.

The timing and context of Harpreet’s PAP meeting invite close to two decades ago invite speculation: was his rejection genuine, or a staged exit to position him as a long-term asset?

Meeting senior PAP leaders suggests trust — why entertain a high-profile candidate only to dismiss him without cause?

Harpreet is Establishment material

Harpreet’s resume screams establishment: Straits Times columns, elite circles, a career thriving in the PAP’s ecosystem.

His 2023 pivot to the WP feels dramatic—too dramatic, perhaps.

Jom quotes him decrying POFMA, Yale-NUS’s closure, and media control: “I don’t see this thing self-correcting.”

It’s a sharp but measured critique, never fully anti-establishment - almost as if he’s playing a part, staying within bounds set by unseen handlers. But it’s also rehearsed, polished — “carefully primed, bullet-proofed,” as Jom puts it.

Could Harpreet’s 2005-2006 encounter have been a directive to embed himself elsewhere, resurfacing in the WP as it gains traction ahead of the 2025 General Election?

The mole hypothesis

Here’s the theory: the PAP, masters of control, saw in Harpreet not a liability but an asset.

They let him simmer, maintaining his insider ties — think Davinder Singh’s mentorship, his establishment perch — while grooming him for a covert role.

That 2005-2006 meeting wasn’t a dead end — it was a starting line. He’s not hiding disillusionment; he’s concealing loyalty.

The WP’s growth threatens the PAP’s grip; who better to embed than a credentialed ally who can pass as a convert?

If he wins a seat, he’s not just a voice — he’s a listener, a conduit back to the ruling elite.

Jom calls him a potential “big fish” for the opposition, but what if he’s bait, dangling to keep the WP in check?

The PAP didn’t lose him — they deployed him.

Harpreet the Harpoon

Harpreet’s WP role is public: he’s been photographed with leaders like Pritam Singh and Sylvia Lim, and his March 18, 2025, Facebook post declares pride in the party, advocating “balanced politics.”

Yet, the PAP’s silence on his departure is telling — no rebuttal, no narrative.

His insider roots — mentored by Davinder Singh, a PAP stalwart — contrast with his late opposition turn at 59.

The WP’s rise (10 seats in 2020) makes it a target for monitoring; Harpreet, with his credentials, fits as a potential plant.

No hard proof exists — his 2005-2006 meeting’s details remain opaque — but the hypothesis lingers.

What’s 'Harpreet the Harpoon' burying? A directive, whispered by senior leaders, to infiltrate and report? A promise of reward if he pulls it off? He’s not the naive reformer Jom lionizes; he’s a chess piece, moved by the party he claims to oppose.

Evidence is thin, but the pattern fits: a man too connected to break free, too strategic to act on whim.

What’s next?

Harpreet’s next steps will clarify his intent.

If he contests in 2025 and wins, his parliamentary actions — loyalty to WP or subtle PAP alignment — could reveal more.

For now, his journey from a 2005-2006 PAP meeting to WP prominence is fact; whether it masks a mole’s agenda is conjecture.

The timeline holds: he met PAP leaders nearly two decades ago, was rebuffed, and now challenges them — or does he?

In 2014, Harpreet Singh Nehal SC, then a Senior Counsel at Cavenagh Law LLP, and two unnamed colleagues found themselves at the center of an ethical storm and was at risk of being disbarred if found guilty.

Tasked with defending Ernest Ferdinand Perez De La Sala in a Singapore trial over a near-billion-dollar trust dispute — Compañia De Navegación Palomar, SA v Ernest Ferdinand Perez De La Sala — they prepared five witnesses in Sydney.

Their methods, including group sessions, were standard for complex litigation, involving affidavit reviews, mock cross-examinations, and error corrections, with safeguards like barring witnesses from commenting on each other’s testimony.

What triggered the investigation

Trouble brewed when a 14-page “script” surfaced mid-trial in 2017, prompting High Court Justice Quentin Loh to question the testimony’s integrity, likening it to coaching banned in England’s case R v Momodou.

The Attorney-General launched a disciplinary probe, but in May 2018, the tribunal exonerated Harpreet and his colleagues.

The decision rested on multiple grounds: the 2010 ethics code lacked clear rules against group preparation, no evidence showed misconduct, and their approach was deemed acceptable at the time.

Harpreet: Where do you hide your face?

Harpreet’s entanglement, detailed in a 2024 JOM article, was a “trial by fire.”

He recalled the 2017 allegations nearly unraveling his career: “When I first heard it, I cooped myself up in my apartment for three full days. ‘Because where do you hide your face?’”

A guilty verdict could have meant disbarment, but after a year-long process, the tribunal found the charges baseless, fully vindicating him and his team.

Why were the lawyers cleared?

The tribunal’s reasoning, per Jeffrey Pinsler SC’s 2018 analysis in the Singapore Academy of Law Journal, was layered:

• No clear rules: The LP(PC)R 2010 didn’t ban group preparation or define its limits, with “no express law or consensus” against it (para 6.1.1).
• No misconduct: Safeguards minimized influence, and the D-3 script wasn’t tied to the lawyers (paras 6.2.4, 6.3.1).
• Legitimate practice: Group sessions, common in complex cases, could enhance accuracy—e.g., jogging memory (para 6.2.7)—with little evidence overlap reducing risks (para 6.2.6).
• No malice: Absent intent to deceive, charges under the Legal Profession Act were “wholly unjustified” (para 21).

Later, the Court of Appeal (2018 SGCA 16) cautioned against group preparation as an evidentiary concern, not a retroactive ethical rule, reinforcing the regulatory gap’s role in their clearance.

No ethical breach, but...

The findings suggest their clearance hinged largely on a regulatory void, raising urgent questions about morality, legality, and the need for reform in Singapore’s legal ethics framework.

Legality cleared them, but morality lingers.

Ethically, the case teeters on a knife’s edge. Group preparation risks memory contamination — a psychological reality — yet it’s a tool used globally, from Australia’s sanctioned conferences to the U.S.’s liberal rehearsals.

Harpreet’s team likely aimed for accuracy, not manipulation, and their safeguards suggest good faith.

Still, the “script” and judicial unease cast shadows: perception matters. Practices blurring witness independence, even unintentionally, chip at justice’s foundation.

In 2014, Singapore’s Legal Profession (Professional Conduct) Rules 2010 offered no specific guidance on witness preparation, let alone group sessions.

The tribunal noted the gap, observing no express prohibition or professional consensus against their methods.

Ethics can falter not from malice, but from the absence of clarity.

The Compania saga reveals a profession navigating murky waters without a compass.

The lawyers’ exoneration wasn’t a triumph of ethics but a symptom of a system unprepared for modern litigation’s complexities.

Pinsler’s call for explicit rules in the 2015 ethics code rings truer today — guidelines defining permissible preparation, mandating transparency, and guarding against contamination could have preempted this mess.

So, were they ethical? Yes, given the context, but with a caveat: ethics demands more than legal compliance.

Clear rules would protect practitioners from retroactive scrutiny and ensure testimony’s integrity.

Until then, cases like the one Harpreet Singh was involved in will linger as cautionary tales — proof that in the absence of clarity, even the well-intentioned tread a fine line.

Ethically, the case remains a gray zone — legally permissible, yet morally debatable.

Singapore, situated outside the Pacific Ring of Fire and not on a plate boundary, faces a low earthquake risk, primarily from distant events on the Sunda Megathrust offshore Sumatra, about 400 km away.

Buildings are designed under the Eurocodes, adopted in 2013, which include earthquake resistance for low-risk areas, ensuring they can handle minor tremors. This makes Singapore buildings generally safe, though not for major earthquakes such as the one that occurred in Myanmar.

Singapore adopted earthquake-resistant design in 2013

Singapore's Building and Construction Authority (BCA) adopted the Eurocodes in 2013, including EN1998 Eurocode 8, which sets guidelines for earthquake-resistant design, particularly for buildings over 20 meters tall on soft soils.

These standards ensure buildings can withstand low-level seismic activity, with research suggesting they are sufficient for Singapore's context, though not designed for major earthquakes like those in high-risk zones.

Role of Chinese construction companies in Singapore

The recent 7.7 magnitude earthquake in central Myanmar on March 28, 2025, caused over 1,600 deaths and significant damage, with effects felt in Thailand, including a collapsed 33-story building in Bangkok involving China Railway Engineering Corporation.

The collapsed building in Bangkok, intended for the State Audit Office, was a joint venture between Italian-Thai Development Plc and China Railway Number 10 (Thailand) Ltd, a subsidiary of China Railway Engineering Corporation (CREC), with the Chinese firm holding a 49% stake.

Chinese construction companies are active in Singapore, part of a competitive market valued at around $30 billion in 2019, with firms like China Construction Development listed among local players.

These companies must comply with Singapore's stringent building codes, ensuring their projects meet the same earthquake resistance standards as others.

The regulatory environment, with periodic reviews by the BCA, mitigates risks, with buildings required to withstand vibrations and shocks from potential tremors.

Track record of Chinese construction

The performance of Chinese-constructed buildings in earthquakes shows variation.

Traditional Chinese architecture, using dougong brackets, has demonstrated earthquake resistance, with structures like the Forbidden City enduring 200 earthquakes over 600 years.

However, modern constructions have faced criticism, notably in the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, where shoddy school construction led to collapses, attributed to poor enforcement and corruption.

The recent Bangkok collapse, involving CREC, raises similar concerns, but it was under construction, and other buildings in Bangkok did not collapse, suggesting context-specific factors.