Significance: 5-judge coram of the Singapore Court of Appeal in the Singapore International Commercial Court (SICC) held that:
- unjust enrichment claims are not subject to limitation (based on the current wording of the Limitation Act (“LA”));
- restitution for wrongs are also not subject to limitation unless the wrong is based on a civil wrong which is addressed in the LA;
- for the s 29 LA postponement of limitation period for fraud or mistake, limitation period runs when circumstances, objectively viewed, give rise to a desire to investigate;
- equitable doctrine of laches does not apply to common law claims;
- a claimant could possibly claim in unjust enrichment for value transferred through intermediaries to the defendant if the substance of the arrangement resulted in a transfer of value from the claimant to the defendant. Value would be provided pursuant to a wider scheme but for which the transferor would not have had the value to transfer. A causal link must be established between (i) resources expended by the claimant and (ii) resources eventually transferred to the defendant. Resources transferred would be regarded as the assets of the claimants and not that of the intermediaries;
- lack of consent could, in principle, be an unjust factor;
- however, legally valid transfers of the claimant’s value without his consent or the retention by the defendant of the claimant’s value which the defendant is legally entitled to cannot be unjust;
- lack of consent would generally not be available as an unjust factor in cases where an alternative established cause of action is already available to the claimant.
- The Court also expressed a provisional view that an unjust enrichment (and not only a contractual) claim may be unenforceable if it offended the policy of international comity, if to permit it would otherwise result in the contravention of the laws of a foreign country. This is insofar as permitting the claim would stultify the policy of international comity. Also, this should extend to defences to claims in unjust enrichment, ie, the fundamental domestic public policy of international comity should bar defences in addition to claims in unjust enrichment, subject to the principle of stultification.
https://www.elitigation.sg/gd/s/2022_SGCAI_1