Bengawan Solo Pte Ltd and Another v Season Confectionery Co (Pte) Ltd

JurisdictionSingapore
JudgeL P Thean JA
Judgment Date24 February 1994
Neutral Citation[1994] SGCA 29
Docket NumberCivil Appeal No 156 of 1992
Date24 February 1994
Published date19 September 2003
Year1994
Plaintiff CounselJimmy Yim and Tony Yeo (Drew & Napier)
Citation[1994] SGCA 29
Defendant CounselKoh Hai Keong and Teo Keng Siang (Koh & Teo)
CourtCourt of Appeal (Singapore)
Subject MatterCivil Procedure,Plaintiff applied ex parte and obtained interim injunction and Anton Piller order,No suspicious conduct,Whether interim injunction should be discharged,Anton piller orders,Passing off,Interim injunction and Anton Piller order discharged,Injunctions,Balance of convenience,Interim injunction,Anton Piller order unjustified,Non-disclosure of material facts,Subject matter of Anton Piller order are perishable,No grave danger or real risk of destruction of evidence

Both the first appellants and the respondents are engaged in the business of manufacturing and selling cakes, pastries and other confectionery products in Singapore. The first appellants were incorporated in 1991 and took over the business of a sole proprietorship under the name and style of Bengawan Solo Cake Shop which had been carrying on such business since December 1975. At present, the first appellants have a chain of 15 retail outlets. The respondents were incorporated in 1966 and were the successors of a partnership which had been carrying on the same business under the name and style of Season Confectionery and the Chinese name of the respondents is ` `. The respondents do not have their own retail outlets, and their cakes, pastries and other confectionery products are distributed to and sold at various emporiums, supermarkets and stores under the brand name `Seasons` represented in a particular style and logo.

In 1992, the Chinese Eighth Moon Festival fell on 11 September 1992.
Sometime prior to that date, both the first appellants and the respondents were actively selling Chinese mooncakes. The first appellants` mooncakes were made and supplied by the second appellants who carried on the business of manufacturing and selling confectionery in Johore Bahru under the name and style of Season Kedai Kek Dan Roti or Season Cake House. Their mooncakes had impressed on them the Chinese characters ` `, the literal translation of which is `Always Fresh`, and the name `Season Cake House` and the words `Season Mooncake` appeared on all the packages or boxes and carrier bags for the mooncakes. The respondents` mooncakes, on the other hand, were made and supplied by Standard Confectionery Sdn Bhd of Lot 20 Jalan E1/4, Taman Eksan Industrial Estate, Kepong, Selangor, West Malaysia. Their mooncakes had impressed on them ` `, the literal translation of which is `era` or `period`. These two Chinese characters also appeared on the packages or boxes. The respondent did not use as the trade mark `Seasons` or ` ` for the mooncakes, but the trade mark `Standard`. The Chinese characters ` ` are not a translation of `Seasons` but a transliteration rendering in Chinese of the sound of the word `season`.

On or about 25 August 1992, the respondents` representatives made a trap purchase of a box of mooncakes sold by the first appellants bearing the name `Season Mooncake`, and complained that the first appellants had passed off their mooncakes as those distributed and sold by the respondents.
Accordingly, on 2 September 1992, the respondents commenced an action in Suit No 1781 of 1992 in the High Court claiming that the first appellants in selling mooncakes bearing the name `Season Mooncake` had passed off the mooncakes as those of the respondents. On the same day they applied ex parte for an interim injunction to restrain the first appellants from selling mooncakes under that name and also an Anton Piller order permitting the respondents and their representatives to enter the premises of the first appellants to search, inspect, photograph and also to remove all the mooncakes sold under that name and all advertising and other materials relating thereto. The ex parte application was heard before P Coomaraswamy J, at which an amendment was made to the application. On 3 September 1992, the learned judge granted to the respondents the interim injunction and the Anton Piller order. The terms of the injunction were very wide and, so far as material, restrained the first appellants from `parting with possession, power, custody or control` confectionery which bore upon them the name `Season` or the Chinese characters ` `. The Anton Piller order directed the first appellants to permit the respondents` solicitors and representatives to enter the appellants` head office and 13 branches or retail outlets named therein for the purpose of searching, inspecting, photographing and removing into the custody of the respondents` solicitors all such confectionery and all packages, carrier bags, advertising and other materials relating to the purchase, sale and distribution of such products.

Armed with the order, the respondents and their solicitors entered the first appellants` head office at Harvey Road and the retail outlets at Marine Parade, Centrepoint and Tai Thong Crescent, and executed the Anton Piller order.
As a result, large quantities of mooncakes and packages, carrier bags, advertising and other materials such as T-shirts, posters, paper bags, brochures, documents, boxes, hanging mobiles, plastic containers, banners with the name `Season` appearing thereon were seized and removed. On the following day, the respondents and their representatives returned to the first appellants` outlet at Tai Thong Crescent and removed a further quantity of 2,500 pieces of mooncakes as they did not have sufficient storage space on the previous day. Obviously the large quantity of mooncakes taken away was proving too much of a handful to store, and on 5 September 1992, the respondents` solicitors wrote to the first appellants` solicitors enquiring if the first appellants would agree to the destruction of all the mooncakes with samples to be taken and kept by each party. The first appellants` solicitors refused and demanded that the Anton Piller order be strictly complied with and that the remaining mooncakes in the first appellants` other outlets be removed. However, the respondents did not proceed to remove them.

On 8 September 1992, the first
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8 cases
  • SM Summit Holdings Ltd and Another v Public Prosecutor and another action
    • Singapore
    • High Court (Singapore)
    • 13 October 1997
    ...to do so can lead to the setting aside of the order irrespective of the merits of the case: see eg Bengawan Solo v Season Confectionery [1994] 1 SLR 617. However, the position taken in R v Curran and Torney has not been followed in Federal Court decisions in Lego Australia v Paraggio (1994)......
  • Expanded Metal Manufacturing Pte Ltd and Another v Expanded Metal Co Ltd
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    • Court of Appeal (Singapore)
    • 11 January 1995
  • BP Singapore
    • Singapore
    • High Court (Singapore)
    • 10 December 2010
    ...Pacific Consultants Pte Ltd [2005] 4 SLR (R) 61; [2005] 4 SLR 61 (refd) Bengawan Solo Pte Ltd v Season Confectionery Co (Pte) Ltd [1994] 1 SLR (R) 448; [1994] 1 SLR 617 (folld) Booker McConnell plc v Plascow [1985] RPC 425 (refd) Computerland Corp v Yew Seng Computers Pte Ltd [1991] 2 SLR (......
  • Lim Suk Ling Priscilla and another v Amber Compounding Pharmacy Pte Ltd and another and another appeal and another matter
    • Singapore
    • Court of Appeal (Singapore)
    • 14 August 2020
    ...of whether they are harmful or helpful to the application (Bengawan Solo Pte Ltd and another v Season Confectionary Co (Pte) Ltd [1994] 1 SLR(R) 448 at [12]; The “Vasiliy Golovnin” [2008] 4 SLR(R) 994 at [91]–[95]). Failure to abide by this duty would render the search order liable to be se......
  • Request a trial to view additional results
2 books & journal articles
  • SELECTED CASE LAW DEVELOPMENTS IN CIVIL PROCEDURE
    • Singapore
    • Singapore Academy of Law Journal No. 1995, December 1995
    • 1 December 1995
    ...Also see Bank of America National Trust & Savings Association v Djoni Widjaja[1994] 2 SLR 816, at pp 821—822. 132 Ibid, at p 824. 133 [1994] 1 SLR 617. 134 [1994] 1 SLR 617, at p 623. 135 Ibid, at p 623. 136 [1983] 3 FSR 313. 137 [1974] Ch 261. 138 Ibid, at pp 267—268. 139 (1879) 12 Ch D 45......
  • CONTROL OF THE SEARCH AND SEIZURE ORDER†
    • Singapore
    • Singapore Academy of Law Journal No. 1994, December 1994
    • 1 December 1994
    ...FSR 424; Computerland Corp. v Yew Seng Computers Pte Ltd[1991] 3 MLJ 201 and Bengawan Solo Pte Ltd v Season Confectionery Co. (Pte) Ltd[1994] 1 SLR 617. In Booker McConnell plc v Plascow[1985] RPC 425 at p. 441, Dillion LJ said: “The phrase ‘a real possibility’ is to be contrasted with the ......

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