Lai Kai Jin Michael v Maybank Securities Pte Ltd and another

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Judgment Date: 24 October 2025
• Neutral Citation: [2025] SGHC 206
• Court: High Court (Singapore)
• Parties: Lai Kai Jin Michael (Lai Kairen Michael),Maybank Securities Pte Ltd,Teo Hui-Ni Sumiko-Jill (Zhang Huini)

Lai Kai Jin Michael v Maybank Securities Pte Ltd and another

[2025] SGHC 206

Originating Claim No 887 of 2023

Lai Kai Jin Michael (Lai Kairen Michael)

Maybank Securities Pte Ltd

Teo Hui-Ni Sumiko-Jill (Zhang Huini)

General Division of the High Court

Andre Maniam J

Equity - Remedies - Account - Account on wilful default basis

Contract - Breach

Damages - Compensation and damages

Sarbjit Singh Chopra, Loh Weijie Leonard and Wong Hoi Leng Chloe (Selvam LLC) for the claimant and defendant in the counterclaim

Ong Tun Wei Danny, Teo Jason and Mah Hao Ran Ian (Setia Law LLC) for the first defendant and claimant in the counterclaim

The second defendant absent and unrepresented.

24 October 2025

Andre Maniam J:

1. The claimant (“Mr Lai”) had brokerage accounts with the 1st defendant (“Maybank Securities”). The 2nd defendant (“Ms Teo”) was the Maybank Securities trading representative that Mr Lai dealt with at the material time.

2. On 7 February 2024, Mr Lai obtained default judgment against Ms Teo, as she had not filed a notice of intention to contest or not contest.

3. Mr Lai’s claim against Maybank Securities, and Maybank Securities’ counterclaim against Mr Lai, proceeded to trial this year. On 28 May 2025 I dismissed Mr Lai’s claim against Maybank Securities, and granted Maybank Securities judgment on its counterclaim against Mr Lai. My decision on costs was conveyed by correspondence on 5 August 2025, with certain typographical/arithmetical errors corrected on 6 August 2025.

4. Mr Lai has appealed against my decisions by AD/CA 61/2025 (on the merits) and AD/CA 79/2025 (on costs). The appeals will be heard together.

5. I gave brief reasons for my decisions earlier. These are my full written grounds of decision.

Introduction

Background

6. Mr Lai dealt with Ms Teo as his trading representative in respect of his accounts with Maybank Securities from 2011 to 2022. Mr Lai was already a client of Maybank Securities before he met Ms Teo, but active trading in Mr Lai’s accounts only started with Ms Teo as his trading representative.¹ Over that 11-year period, the trades in Mr Lai’s accounts were substantial in number and value.

7. On the evidence, Mr Lai gave Ms Teo a broad discretion to transact in securities using his accounts.²

8. The trades that were made in Mr Lai’s accounts (by Ms Teo) were duly reported to him by Maybank Securities sending him contract notes, monthly statements, and other documents.³

9. Mr Lai, however, generally did not review the documents sent to him by Maybank Securities, although the terms of the contract between him and Maybank Securities made him responsible for reviewing them, and obliged him to inform Maybank Securities of any mistake, omission or disagreement within fourteen (14) days, failing which he no longer had the right to dispute the accuracy of the documents.⁴ Mr Lai never disputed any of the entries in any of the documents sent by Maybank Securities, within the stipulated time for him to do so. (See [15]–[17], [19]–[20], [36], and [44]–[56] below).

10. Instead, Mr Lai relied on what Ms Teo represented to him, such as (a) by messages from her; (b) by documents that she created for him, and (c) by edits to his portfolio that she made (using his password) through Maybank Securities’ Online Trade Platform, which were in turn reflected in what he viewed through the MBKE App (Maybank Securities’ mobile application). In so far as what Ms Teo represented to him differed from what was stated in the documents that Maybank Securities had sent him, Mr Lai’s position was that he was entitled to hold Maybank Securities to what Ms Teo had represented, although this position ran counter to the contract between Mr Lai and Maybank Securities.⁵

11. Ms Teo had Mr Lai’s user name and password for the Online Trade Platform and MBKE App, as he had collected the user name and password from Maybank Securities and provided them to Ms Teo,⁶ although for Mr Lai to do so was contrary to the terms of the contract between Mr Lai and Maybank Securities,⁷ and moreover the PIN mailer from Maybank Securities told Mr Lai to keep the password strictly private and confidential, and that it was to be used only by himself. Not only did Mr Lai provide his user name and password to Ms Teo, but he also asked her to remind him what they were from time to time.⁸ There is no dispute that Mr Lai knew that Ms Teo had his user name and password. (See [40], [57]–[77]).

Mr Lai’s claim

12. Mr Lai claimed against Maybank Securities for:⁹

• (a) an account of all the money, securities and property as have been possessed or received by Maybank Securities on his behalf or to his order, and an order for payment of all sums found due to him on the taking of the account;

• (b) further or alternatively, damages to be assessed;

• (c) interest;

• (d) costs; and

• (e) further or other relief.

Maybank Securities’ counterclaim

13. Maybank Securities counterclaimed against Mr Lai for:¹⁰

• (a) the sums of US$126,261.06 and HK$360,997.47 (being contra losses incurred) and S$52,972.13 (being contractual interest accrued on the losses up to 31 January 2024);

• (b) further or alternatively, damages to be assessed;

• (c) continuing interest on the sums in US$ and HK$ at the prevailing contractual rate of HSBC’s prime rate + 3.5% from 1 February 2024 to the date of payment in full;

• (d) a declaration that Mr Lai is liable to indemnity Maybank Securities for any and all legal fees and expenses as incurred, and an order that he do pay the same forthwith; and

• (e) further or other relief.

Summary of decision

Provision of an account

14. As an alternative to damages, Mr Lai sought an account from Maybank Securities of all transactions in his accounts going back to 2011.¹¹ Maybank Securities had, however, already provided Mr Lai with an account of all such transactions, by the documents Maybank Securities had sent him contemporaneously (which Mr Lai generally did not review, and never disputed at the time). There was no basis to require Maybank Securities to account for those transactions all over again.

Authorised but unexecuted trades

15. Mr Lai claimed that Ms Teo had failed to execute certain trades which he had authorised.¹² However, the terms of the contract between Mr Lai and Maybank Securities provided that Maybank Securities was not obliged to execute trades even where a client had given instructions, and bore no liability for such non-execution.¹³ Moreover, none of the allegedly authorised trades was reflected in the documents which Maybank Securities had sent Mr Lai contemporaneously, and Mr Lai never disputed that at the time.

16. Mr Lai also deposited millions of dollars into Ms Teo’s personal bank account, for her to apply for initial public offers (“IPOs”) for him.¹⁴ The terms of the contract between Mr Lai and Maybank Securities, however, stated that a trading representative (like Ms Teo) was not authorised to collect payment on behalf of Maybank.¹⁵ In so far as Mr Lai paid Ms Teo money for IPO applications (which it does not appear she made), Maybank Securities was not liable to Mr Lai for that. Moreover, none of the supposed IPO allotments in question was reflected in the documents which Maybank Securities sent to Mr Lai contemporaneously, and Mr Lai never disputed that at the time.

Unauthorised but executed trades

17. Mr Lai also claimed that there were various unauthorised trades done by Ms Teo on his accounts,¹⁶ but he failed to prove any such unauthorised trades,¹⁷ and in any event this claim would fail as all of the allegedly unauthorised trades were reflected in the documents which Maybank Securities sent to Mr Lai contemporaneously, which he never disputed at the time.

18. Furthermore, in so far as Mr Lai’s claim was for breach of contract concerning matters more than six years prior to him suing Maybank Securities, that was time barred.

Provision of information

19. Maybank Securities accounted to Mr Lai for each transaction in his accounts, over the years, and he never raised any dispute at the time.

20. In so far as Mr Lai relied instead on what was represented by Ms Teo, that could not prevail over the documents that Maybank Securities sent to Mr Lai, which he had not disputed at the time.¹⁸

Maybank Securities’ counterclaim

21. Maybank Securities had proved its counterclaim against Mr Lai for contra losses and interest, and I granted judgment to Maybank Securities.

22. My fuller analysis follows.

Mr Lai’s claim against Maybank Securities – account

23. Mr Lai said that Maybank Securities had failed to provide him with a proper account;¹⁹ Maybank Securities said that it had done so.²⁰

24. I agreed with Maybank Securities that it had provided Mr Lai with a proper account, by way of the monthly statements, contract notes, and other documents that it had provided to him over the years. It followed that Mr Lai’s claim for an account failed.

25. I did not accept that Mr Lai was unable to understand the documents that Maybank Securities provided him, but even if that were the case he should have raised that with Maybank Securities promptly, but he did not.

26. Mr Lai was not financially illiterate, far from it. He was a litigation lawyer from 1994 to 2009;²¹ by the time he left legal practice, he was a profit-sharing partner heading the shipping department of the law firm he was in;²² in 2012, he became group general counsel and head of insurance of Ezra Holdings Limited,²³ which was listed on the Singapore stock exchange, and he was part of the team involved in Ezra’s complex restructuring process, leaving Ezra at the end of 2019;²⁴ by 2020, he owned shipping insurance businesses held through offshore companies;²⁵ he also held directorships in local and foreign listed companies.²⁶

27. Nor was Mr Lai a novice in the trading of securities: he did not merely buy and sell sh...