Markpoint Engineering Pte Ltd v Decon Construction & Engineering Pte Ltd
Jurisdiction | Singapore |
Judge | Loo Ngan Chor |
Judgment Date | 24 June 2020 |
Neutral Citation | [2020] SGDC 142 |
Court | District Court (Singapore) |
Docket Number | DC Suit No. 4085 of 2016 |
Year | 2020 |
Published date | 02 July 2020 |
Hearing Date | 25 July 2019,26 July 2019,15 October 2019,08 October 2019 |
Plaintiff Counsel | Mr. Goh Jian Qing Alywin, Mr. Joel Tan, & Ms. Sylvia Koh [Continental Law LLP] - |
Defendant Counsel | Mr. Dhanaraj James Selvaraj [James Selvaraj LLC] - |
Subject Matter | Civil procedure,costs,principles |
Citation | [2020] SGDC 142 |
This decision on costs is supplementary to my decision of 15th April 2020, reported at [2020] SGDC 98, by which I dismissed both the claim and the counter-claim, with costs to be fixed by me, if necessary, after I had the benefit of parties’ submissions on costs.
There has been no appeal against the principal decision.
The plaintiff submits that I should make no order as to costs. Its argument is that the counter-claim raised a point distinct from the defence, in the form of “the issue of the plaintiff’s failure to make payment for the construction works done by the defendant up till sometime on or around April 2014… Accordingly, the breach of the plaintiff’s obligation to make payment to the defendant is the separate and substantial question raised by the defendant”.
The plaintiff relies on the Court of Appeal decision in
The context of this issue is set out in the earlier part of the headnote of
In 2004, Mok Kwong Yue (“the plaintiff”) sued Ding Leng Kong (“the defendant”) to recover monies allegedly paid under mistake of law. The defendant resisted the claim and mounted a counterclaim. The judge dismissed both the claim and the counterclaim with costs (see [2008] SGHC 65).
In November 2010, the plaintiff presented his bill of costs for the work done in respect of the counterclaim for taxation. The defendant only filed the defendant’s bill of costs for the work done in resisting the claim on 28 September 2011. The plaintiff claimed,
inter alia , $80,000 in respect of getting up for the counterclaim. The assistant registrar (“the AR”) awarded the plaintiff $7,000, applying the principle inMedway Oil and Storage Company, Limited v Continental Contractors, Limited [1929] 1 AC 88 (“Medway” ) that where the counterclaim arose from the defence to the main claim, no apportionment would be ordered but rather extra costs arising from the counterclaim could be allowed. The defendant appealed and argued that the principles inChristie v Platt [1921] 2 KB 17 (“Christie v Platt” ) were applicable: namely that costs should be apportioned between the plaintiff and defendant where each had been successful (ie , on the claim and counterclaim respectively) in accordance with a consideration of how much of each item of costs had been incurred in relation to either the claim or counterclaim.
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