A woman took to court with a defamation suit after her sister-in-law allegedly called her a “rotten” and “cheap” woman after throwing a bunch of bananas at her during her father-in-law’s funeral wake.

The woman, Lim Siew Ling, 48, is a widow who took over a family-owned car dealership from her late husband.

The court heard on Tuesday (Jan 19), that Ms Lim’s sister-in-law Neo Choon Sian disparaged her in front of business associates and customers during the former’s father-in-law’s 5-day wake.

Ms Lim is suing Ms Neo and her husband Heng Hong Hing, both 57, for defaming her at the wake in May 2018, and on two subsequent occasions at the office of Prime Cars Credit (PCC) in June 2018 and August 2018, an AsiaOne report said.

The court also heard that in June 2018, Ms Neo and Mr Heng, who is a manager at PCC, insulted Ms Lim for

changing the shareholdings and for using company funds to set up a second company called Prime Cars Leasing (PCL) in her sole name and to maintain her boyfriend.

PCC dealt with the sale and financing of vehicles, while PCL handled car rentals.

In August 2018, the couple, again in front of employees, said Ms Lim had “deceived” them regarding the shareholdings.

As this case is ongoing, Ms Lim is also facing two other ongoing lawsuits: One, brought by PCL, where Ms Neo is now a director, to recover the sales proceeds of cars; and the other, brought by the Neos to recover about S$40,000 that had been paid out by PCC to her boyfriend Ng Boon Chong. /TISG