Over billing is not overcharging and is not an offence

I keep pondering over this statement and keep asking myself if it makes any sense? Is over billing overcharging? And why is overcharging an offence and over billing is not?

The Sunday Times gave nearly one page to Salma Khalik’s article with the title, ‘High court slashes SMC’s claims, calling them EXORBITANT, UNREASONABLE’.  I like the big fonts and bold treatment of the words exorbitant and unreasonable. I wonder if there is a deeper meaning to it. Other than slashing down the high bills, there were no penalties for overcharging. Oops, correction, it is over billing, not overcharging. I am so tempted to look at all the dictionaries to see if there is any difference or similarities between the two words.

Susan Lim was found guilty for overcharging the Brunei royalties $24.8m for 7 months of work. She was fined $10,000, suspended for practice for 3 years and to pay cost to SMC. SMC took Susan Lim to task for overcharging. And Susan Lim’s husband took the SMC to court for overcharging. Sorry, it is over billing. The word overcharging keeps bugging me and I could not shake it off. 

Ok, Susan Lim did some work for her client and sent her a bill for her services. In the SMC case, they took Susan Lim to court and won and sent her a bill, not for services rendered but for time and effort spent on the case. So it was not a case of charging a client for services. I think this is the difference between over billing and overcharging.

Now, how much did the SMC over billed? Four cases were highlighted in Salma’s report. 1. from $900,000 to $180,000, 2. from $235,000 to $22.000, 3. from $42,000 to $5,000 and 4. from $150,000 to $70,000. These add up to $1,327,000 and cut to $277,000.

In the same report, Salma mentioned that last year a bill of $1m was cut to $370,000 and last month a bill of $1.3m was slashed to $317,000. I will not try to rationalise the numbers but just using the last two numbers, the two bills came to $2.3m which ended up as $687,000 or an over billing of $1,613,000, or about 220% of $687,000.

In Susan Lim’s case, the court ruled that there is ethical ground not to overcharge a client. I quote, ‘Overcharging can still occur even if there is a prior agreement on fees as ethical obligations of a doctor must “prevail over contractual obligations”. I am not sure if a court would make a similar ruling on overcharging when lawyers over billed or overcharged their clients.  Would ethics be an important factor in legal billings? The decision by the court is between the SMC and Susan Lim.

Would it be over charging if the case is between the SMC and their lawyers when it becomes the lawyer billing the SMC for services rendered? So far the most authoritative body, the Law Society had made a statement that over billing is not overcharging and is an acceptable or normal practice. There is no wrongdoing involved. So the court just slashed the bills and end of story. No penalties or fines or suspension of practices are warranted.

Would the SMC sue its legal representatives and those who stood as witnesses for overcharging? If these parties accepted the court’s decision, there is no more case to follow up, I think, end of story. What if these parties continue to demand payment from the SMC?

Kopi Level - Yellow