CFO loses $200k bonus claim after rewriting employer's requirements

Ngai Nai Ping Jango joined Banshing Industrial as chief financial officer in November 2022, earning $20,000 a month plus an annual performance bonus of $100,000. Two years later, after his employment ended in November 2024 and he departed in January 2025, he sued the precision-engineering company for $200,000 in unpaid bonuses covering 2023 and 2024. On September 1, District Judge Jonathan Ng Pang Ern dismissed the claim entirely, finding that Ngai had essentially rewritten the bonus requirements on his own terms because he believed his approach was superior to what his employer had specified.

The trouble began in June 2023, when Banshing director Alvin Cheng Kaway sent Ngai an email laying out the bonus criteria: a financial valuation model delivered as an Excel workbook containing seven specific worksheets. These were to cover historical financial data, financial statements, forecasts, market data, return on invested capital, free cash flow, and a final valuation. Ngai acknowledged receiving the material and discussed it with Cheng. But when it came time to deliver, he did not produce the seven worksheets. Instead, he developed his own valuation and return-on-investment model, arguing that it accomplished what his employer wanted, even if it did not follow the required format or template.

At trial, when asked directly whether he had reinterpreted his manager's requirements based on what he thought the manager really wanted, Ngai answered: "That's correct." He explained that he possessed deeper knowledge of valuation models than Cheng and could deliver a model that would produce the expected results, just not in the specified structure. Judge Ng rejected this reasoning outright. The criteria were "extremely specific," the judge wrote, and it was not open to Ngai to substitute his own judgment for the employer's explicit instructions. "Regardless of what the claimant thought about the seven worksheets, and regardless of whether the claimant was correct in so thinking, they remained the criteria for the annual performance bonus," Judge Ng stated. "Had he simply delivered the seven worksheets as the defendant had required, he might have found himself in different circumstances today. In this sense, he was the author of his own predicament."

Ngai also argued that Banshing had breached his employment contract by failing to agree and define the bonus criteria during his three-month probation period, as the contract required. But the judge found that both sides bore a bilateral obligation to reach agreement, and that they had done so by June 16, 2023, when Cheng emailed the Excel model requirements and Ngai replied that he had received the message and looked forward to discussing it. The same criteria carried forward into 2024.

At trial, Ngai shifted his argument, claiming he had completed the required work through the ROI model he had developed and introduced to the company. He pointed to a capital expenditure policy he had created, an ROI framework, training he had provided to finance managers, an ROI template he had designed, and the incorporation of the process into company approval procedures. Judge Ng found this testimony unhelpful. It was "long on technical jargon but short on any meaningful explanation" of how it satisfied the actual bonus criteria, the judge wrote. Several technical terms went undefined, and it remained unclear whether similar-sounding terms referred to the same thing. "It is not good enough for the claimant to just throw up one unexplained technical term after another and expect the court to somehow understand and make sense of it all," Judge Ng said. When Ngai later argued in closing submissions that he had delivered the "substance" of the seven worksheets, he failed to explain how each worksheet corresponded to something he had actually produced.

Ngai also contended that he deserved the bonus because he had exceeded his normal duties, essentially claiming he was an "exceptional CFO" entitled to payment regardless. The judge rejected this too, holding that whatever Ngai's assessment of his own performance, he had to meet the specific criteria set for the bonus.

Finally, Ngai alleged that Albert Cheng, Banshing's founder and managing director, had orally assured him the unpaid bonuses would eventually be paid. He said Albert Cheng told him in January 2024 that the 2023 bonus had been deferred due to cash-flow problems but would be paid when the company's financial position improved. Albert Cheng denied making any such representations. Judge Ng found he could not prefer Ngai's account over Albert Cheng's, and if anything, Albert Cheng's evidence was more convincing. Ngai had active WeChat communications with Albert Cheng but produced no documentary evidence of the alleged promises. The judge therefore found Ngai had failed to prove the representations were made. The court ordered both parties to file written submissions on costs within two weeks.