Law. Faith. Justice. Community. Culture.
Airtrust (Hong Kong) Ltd v PH Hydraulics & Engineering Pte Ltd [2015] SGHC 307
Significance: punitive or exemplary damages awarded for breach of contract by way of delivery of a defective manufactured good.
Per Ah Seng Robin v Housing and Development Board [2015] SGCA 62
Significance: HDB’s right to compulsorily acquire a flat when the flat was illegally sublet.
Daniel John Brader and others v Commerzbank AG [2013] SGHC 284
Significance: Court held that an announcement made to employees at a Townhall meeting regarding bonus payments was held to be a sufficiently certain binding unilateral contract collateral to their employment contracts.
Bombay Talkies (S) Pte Ltd v United Overseas Bank Limited [2015] SGCA 66
Significance: meaning of compounding debt in respect of statutory demands under the companies winding-up regime.
Significance: principles on Rule 31 of the Legal Profession (Professional Conduct) Rules prohibiting solicitors from acting against former clients and persons “involved in or associated with” former clients in related matters; meaning of persons “involved in or associated with” former clients; “related matters”.
PT Selecta Bestama v Sin Huat Huat Marine Transportation Pte Ltd [2015] SGHC 295
Significance: stay of proceedings, multi-tiered dispute resolution clause, obligation to negotiate prior to legal proceedings and exclusive jurisdiction clause; reliance on exclusive jurisdiction clause despite challenging validity of contract.
Piattchanine, Iouri v Phosagro Asia Pte Ltd [2015] SGHC 259
Significance: High Court determines issue of when it is permissible to raise new grounds for terminating employment contract post-termination; breaches of implied contractual duties of employee.
Tan Chin Hoon and others v Tan Choo Suan and others [2010] SGHC 340
Significance: beneficial owners of shares in companies do not have the locus standi to commence actions in minority oppression. Such beneficial owners should first commence proceedings to have the shares transferred to themselves before commencing action in minority oppression.
Cavendish Square Holding BV v Talal El Makdessi (Cavendish) and ParkingEye Limited v Beavis [2015] UKSC 67
Significance: the true test for whether a clause is unenforceable as a penalty clause is whether the impugned provision is a secondary obligation which imposes a detriment on the contract-breaker out of all proportion to any legitimate interest of the innocent party in the enforcement of the primary obligation.
“When philosophy has gained the truth of which it is capable, it passes into politics and prayer, politics through which the world is changed, prayer through which men ask God to complete the change of the world by carrying them into His presence and giving them what, left to themselves, they would always lack.”
“And, as the reader might have discerned by now, I do believe in God and in the higher knowledge that cannot be ours. And that explains why I believe that Unger (or any other theorist) cannot postulate an even close to perfect theory. That this is so is demonstrated by the complex mesh of critique and counter-critique that have, as their central focus, the influential theory or theories of the day. Indeed, Unger himself believed that to be so in Knowledge and Politics, although his present views are rather less obvious. I see nothing terribly frightening in this acknowledgment of the fallibility of human knowledge which we nevertheless continue to use whilst functioning as human beings. It also mandates a humility which has, in any event, always been the hallmark of the great scholars of our time.”