Seow Fook Sen Aloysius v Rajah & Tann Singapore LLP

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Judge: Andrew Phang Boon Leong JCA
• Judgment Date: 12 May 2022
• Neutral Citation: [2022] SGCA 40
• Court: Court of Appeal (Singapore)
• Docket Number: Originating Summons No 5 of 2022
• Published date: 18 May 2022
• Year: 2022
• Hearing Date: 01 March 2022
• Plaintiff Counsel: Christopher Anand s/o Daniel, Harjean Kaur, Yeo Yi Ling Eileen, Keith Valentine Lee Jia Jin and Shalini Rajasegar (Advocatus Law LLP)
• Defendant Counsel: Liew Wey-Ren Colin (Colin Liew LLC)
• Subject Matter: Courts and Jurisdiction,Appeals
• Citation: [2022] SGCA 40

Andrew Phang Boon Leong JCA (delivering the judgment of the court): Introduction

The coming into force of the Supreme Court of Judicature (Amendment) Act 2019 (Act 40 of 2019) (“the SCJA(A)”) established the Appellate Division of the High Court and a statutory scheme in the Supreme Court of Judicature Act 1969 (2020 Rev Ed) (“the SCJA”) governing the allocation of appeals between the Court of Appeal and the Appellate Division. Under the statutory scheme, appeals from decisions of the General Division of the High Court are to be made to the Appellate Division, unless they come within the Sixth Schedule to the SCJA (see ss 29C(1)‒(2) of the SCJA). The present application, Originating Summons No 5 of 2022 (“OS 5”), presents us with an opportunity to provide guidance on how counsel should navigate this statutory scheme and how the categories in the Sixth Schedule ought to be interpreted.

Background

OS 5 is an application by Mr Seow Fook Sen Aloysius (“Mr Seow”) for leave to appeal against the decision of a judge in the General Division (“the Judge”) in Seow Fook Sen Aloysius v Rajah & Tann Singapore LLP HC/OS 1185/2021 (8 February 2022) (“OS 1185”). OS 1185 was an application by Mr Seow for an order for taxation of a bill of costs under s 120 of the Legal Profession Act (Cap 161, 2009 Rev Ed) (“the LPA”).

The background to OS 1185 was as follows. Sometime in April 2020, Rajah & Tann Singapore LLP (“R&T”) was engaged by Hin Leong Trading Pte Ltd (“HLT”) to carry out some corporate restructuring work. R&T required HLT to provide funds of S$2m as a deposit for the engagement. HLT duly provided a cheque for the deposit. At the request of his wife (a director of HLT), Mr Seow also provided a cheque to R&T. The parties had intended for Mr Seow’s cheque to be deposited in place of HLT’s own cheque if the latter could not be cleared. In the event, HLT’s own cheque did not clear and Mr Seow’s cheque was deposited into HLT’s client account with R&T. R&T then proceeded to carry out the restructuring work.

In November 2020, R&T issued an invoice to HLT (which by then had come under the care of judicial managers) for the sum of S$908,955.68 in respect of HLT’s restructuring work done between 8 April 2020 and 27 April 2020. R&T then informed HLT’s judicial managers that it proposed to set off those fees against the sum of S$2m in HLT’s client account (representing the funds from Mr Seow’s cheque) and return the balance to Mr Seow. It does not appear that HLT’s judicial managers objected to the same. R&T then proceeded to debit S$908,955.68 from HLT’s client account and returned the balance to Mr Seow. Mr Seow was however dissatisfied with the quantum of the fees that had been debited and so he sought an order under s 120 of the LPA for R&T’s bill of costs to HLT to be taxed. HLT has since been wound up.

A preliminary issue stands in the way of this court considering the leave application proper. Sections 29C(1) and (2) of the SCJA provide that an appeal against a decision of the General Division in the exercise of its original or appellate civil jurisdiction is to be made to the Appellate Division and not to the Court of Appeal, unless provided for by the Sixth Schedule to the SCJA or any other written law. Mr Seow considers the Court of Appeal as the appellate court to which an appeal from the Judge’s decision is to be made, and accordingly with which OS 5 should be filed, on the basis that his intended appeal comes within para 1(d) of the Sixth Schedule, which provides as follows: 1. For the purposes of section 29C(2), an appeal against a decision of the General Division in the exercise of its original or appellate civil jurisdiction is to be made to the Court of Appeal in the following cases:

…

(d) the appeal arises from a case relating to the insolvency, restructuring or dissolution of a corporation … (even if the appeal does not raise any issue relating to the law concerning the insolvency, restructuring or dissolution of a corporation …);

It appears that Mr Seow has taken this position for two reasons. First, it is because R&T’s engagement (which gave rise to the disputed bill for which Mr Seow seeks an order for taxation) had arisen in the factual context of HLT’s judicial management and subsequent winding-up. Second, he found it significant that the words in parentheses in para 1(d) of the Sixth Schedule provide for an appeal which did not itself raise any issue relating to the law of insolvency as nevertheless coming within the scope of para 1(d). Presumably, Mr Seow thought that buttressed the first reason because it meant that it did not matter that his intended appeal itself raised no issue relating to HLT’s insolvency and the legal principles or rules which it engaged.

The Sixth Schedule to the SCJA

To determine if Mr Seow’s position is justified, we need to consider the proper scope of the Sixth Schedule to the SCJA. The appeals which the Sixth Schedule provides are to be made to the Court of Appeal by default can be classified into three categories: First, where the appeal “arises from a case relating to” specified subject matter, such as constitutional or administrative law, contempt of court, the law of arbitration, insolvency or the law of patents. This is provided for in paras 1(a)‒(e) of the Sixth Schedule. Importantly, as the words in parentheses in paras 1(a)‒(e) make clear, even if the appeal itself does not raise issues relating to specified subject matter, so long as it “arises from a case relating to” that subject matter, it will nevertheless come within the Sixth Schedule. Second, where the appeal is against particular decisions of the General Division, such as a decision of the Singapore International Commercial Court (“SICC”) (see para 1(f)), a decision made under the Parliamentary Elections Act 1954 (see para 1(g)), a judgment or order made in an action brought under s 47(8) of the Presidential Elections Act 1991 (see para 1(h)), or a decision made under the Mediation Act 2017 or the Singapore Convention on Mediation Act 2020 (see paras 1(k) and (l)). Third, where the appeal is to be made to the Court of Appeal under written laws (see paras 1(i) and (j)).

The establishment of the Appellate Division and the statutory scheme for the allocation of appeals in the SCJA was meant to relieve the Court of Appeal’s growing caseload from a quantitative perspective, while simultaneously permitting it to focus its resources on matters which would benefit from its expertise as the apex court of the land from a qualitative perspective (see the decision of this court in Noor Azlin bte Abdul Rahman and another v Changi General Hospital Pte Ltd [2021] 2 SLR 440 at [5]). At the second reading of the SCJA(A), the Senior Minister of State for Law, Mr Edwin Tong, explained the general considerations which underlie the identification of appeals that came within the Sixth Schedule (see Singapore Parliamentary Debates, Official Report (5 November 2019) vol 94 (Edwin Tong Chun Fai, Senior Minister of State for...