In 2020, former Twelve Cupcakes founders, Daniel Ong and then-wife Jaime Teo, were charged in court for breaching employment laws.
The ex-radio DJ started the business in 2011 with the former Miss Universe Singapore, whom he married in 2007. They sold the company to India-based Dhunseri Group in 2017, a year after their divorce, for S$2.5 million.
Four years after selling the business, Daniel received 24 counts of contravening rules under the Employment of Foreign Manpower Act for offences he allegedly committed while he was at the helm of the cupcake chain.
Both Daniel and Jaime were eventually fined S$65,000 each for their role in underpaying seven foreign employees for more than three years.
Now that four years has passed, the now 49-year-old recently opened up about the scandal in a recent episode of Allan Wu’s YouTube series Call Us Daddy.
Looking back at the incident, Daniel, who now owns steakhouse chain Dan’s Steaks and seafood restaurant Estuary, admitted that it was a “really tough time” for both him and Jaime.
“We were belittled and just abused every single day on social media. Most people didn’t understand what went wrong,” he said.
Daniel recalled that at that time, he and Jaime were so busy running their 12 outlets in Singapore and hence needed to hire workers really fast.
They then enlisted an employment agency, which was run by two elderly folks, to handle all their hiring processes.
“I remember signing a lot of papers, these papers will just be the final sheet of a stack,” he said.
Daniel alleged that they only found out “at a much later time” that many of the workers were reported to be drawing a S$2,000 salary though their wages were only S$1,700 a month.
“So they were like ‘underpaid’,” he said, drawing air-quotes with his fingers.
“The main thing was that we never saw what were the first seven sheets of paper before [the final sheet that we signed]. This agency basically filled in the blanks, wrote whatever they want just to get the workers in. We would sign on the final sheet of paper without seeing the front,” he claimed.
It’s why when Ministry of Manpower (MOM) approached Daniel and Jaime in 2019, Daniel told the MOM officers that they had never even seen the stack of papers before.
“None of my signatures are on the first few pages,” he said, though he was still found guilty as his signature was found at the end of the stack.
They also attempted to locate the employment agency at that time but it “disappeared”.
“They were no longer around. They were retired and we couldn’t find them. The company had ceased to exist,” he shared.
As a result, the agency could not be held accountable and the only ones who were left to hold the blame were directors of the company, namely Daniel and Jaime.
Daniel went on to share that he has learnt a lot from the incident, and urged viewers to “not sign things without knowing what you’re signing”.
He also said he had a great relationship with his workers and that they were a “great organisation”.
“The workers and us had no problems. They knew what their salary was. We paid them what was agreed between us and we never thought that anything was amiss,” he said.
However, on paper, it was written that they had required a S$2,000-S$2,100 salary which Daniel “did not know about”.
He reasoned that the payroll at the end of the month was always in a lump sum, and he had no idea how the money was divided.
“But when you say you don’t know, that’s also wrong. As a director, it’s your duty to find out the black and white behind the contracts,” he acknowledged.
Daniel ended up going to court to pay for his mistakes, and the high-profile scandal also led to him receiving a significant amount of backlash from the public.
“I remember being spat on by people in public. People would walk up to me, spit on my feet and tell me what a bad human being I am,” he said.
One time, Daniel told the person: “Excuse me, ma’am, can I just tell you what it was” before taking a couple of minutes to explain the situation to her.
After hearing his side of the story, the lady then said: “Oh, sorry, sorry.”