Enholco Pte Ltd v Schonk, Antonius Martinus Mattheus and Another

• Court: High Court (Singapore)
• Judge: Choo Han Teck J
• Judgment Date: 28 April 2015
• Neutral Citation: [2015] SGHC 108
• Citation: [2015] SGHC 108
• Docket Number: Suit No 212 of 2013
• Published date: 11 February 2016
• Hearing Date: 28 April 2015
• Plaintiff Counsel: Dr Lau Teik Soon and Karuppiah Chandra Sekaran (Lau Chandra & Rita LLP)
• Defendant Counsel: See Chern Yang (Premier Law LLC)
• Subject Matter: Damages,Measure of damages,Contract

Choo Han Teck J:

Enholco Pte Ltd (“the plaintiff”) is mainly in the business of the sale of spare parts and providing consultancy services in the oil and gas industry. Haank Jan Gerhard (“Gerhard”) is its managing director. Schonk Antonius Martinus Mattheus (“the first defendant”) was an employee of the plaintiff from 1 September 1989 till 24 August 2012. He incorporated International Oil and Gas Consultants (“the second defendant”) on 5 April 2012 and is its sole shareholder and director. Previously in Enholco Pte Ltd v Schonk, Antonius Martinus Mattheus and Another [2015] SGHC 20, I had allowed the plaintiff’s claim and dismissed the defendants’ counterclaims. This judgment deals with the assessment of damages in light of judgment for the plaintiff.

There are some differences between the quantum of damages and nature of relief claimed in the plaintiff’s statement of claim and most recently in the plaintiff’s submissions on damages. It is a fundamental principle of our adversarial system of litigation that each party should be bound by its pleaded case. The purpose behind this principle however, is to allow the other party to be put on notice and have the opportunity to respond to such claims sufficiently. As such, I assessed the damages to be awarded on the basis of the claims and nature of reliefs that have been adduced in evidence at trial and as set out in its statement of claim, but not what was only raised after the trial had concluded.

Following from the above, the plaintiff claims that the defendants are liable for the following heads of losses and damages that the plaintiff has suffered: loss of plaintiff’s company car valued at $100,000; advances and personal loans taken out from the plaintiff and not returned, valued at $575,000; unauthorised personal and travel expenses, valued at $1,226,787.63; diversion of consultancy fees and commissions, valued at $118,560; diversion of business, valued at $55,670.83; and loss of future profits, estimated between $2.8m and $4.2m.

In relation to claims (b) and (c) the plaintiff alleges that monies were taken out from the plaintiff from 1994 to 2012 either on loans which have not been returned, or were taken out for personal expenses and travel expenses which were not authorised. But these travel and personal expenses of the first defendant had been captured in audited account statements which the plaintiff must have been aware of, and without raising any prior objections to them,...