Sun Jin Engineering Pte Ltd v Hwang Jae Woo
Jurisdiction | Singapore |
Court | Court of Three Judges (Singapore) |
Judge | Chao Hick Tin JA |
Judgment Date | 21 January 2011 |
Neutral Citation | [2011] SGCA 4 |
Citation | [2011] SGCA 4 |
Docket Number | Civil Appeal No 73 of 2010 |
Date | 21 January 2011 |
Defendant Counsel | Haresh Kamdar (KhattarWong) |
Subject Matter | Civil Procedure |
Hearing Date | 07 September 2010 |
Published date | 06 April 2011 |
Plaintiff Counsel | A Rajandran (A Rajandran) |
This is an appeal against the decision of the High Court judge (“the Judge”), who upheld the decision of the assistant registrar (“the AR”) to grant a stay of proceedings in Suit No 379 of 2009 (“the Singapore Action”), an action commenced in Singapore by the appellant, Sun Jin Engineering Pte Ltd (“the Appellant”), against the respondent, Hwang Jae Woo (“the Respondent”). The grounds of decision of the Judge may be found at
To better appreciate the circumstances giving rise to the Singapore Action, we will first set out the facts of the case. The Appellant is a company incorporated in Singapore. Its majority shareholder and director is one Seung Yong Chung (“Seung”), who is also a substantial shareholder and director of a Malaysian company known as Sun Jin Engineering (M) Sdn Bhd (“SJM”). The Respondent is a South Korean citizen who was the acting project director for projects undertaken by SJM in the Republic of Maldives (“the Maldives”). The exact legal relationship between the Appellant and the Respondent is in dispute,1 although the Judge was tentatively of the view that the Respondent was in fact employed by the Appellant at the material time, albeit seconded to work for SJM in the Maldives (see the GD at [31]; see also
The Respondent worked in the Maldives from 27 August 2006 to 1 February 2008. When the Respondent arrived in the Maldives on 27 August 2006, he was given a letter of employment dated 15 August 2006 from SJM. The authenticity of this letter is disputed by the Appellant. During the period while the Respondent was working in the Maldives, he was the country representative, project director and project manager of SJM. It is undisputed that the directors of SJM passed a resolution on 3 May 2007 appointing the Respondent as its country representative in the Maldives. The work permit issued by the Maldivian authorities showed the Respondent as an employee of SJM.
The Appellant brought the Singapore Action against the Respondent, claiming that the latter had (
The main unauthorised payments alluded to at
We should add that legal proceedings in connection with the above two payments were earlier commenced in the Maldives, and judgments have already been given by the courts there. The judgments in those proceedings (which are different from the contemplated Maldivian proceedings mentioned at
At this juncture, we should further add that the Respondent has successfully sued SJM in the Maldives (in Case No 733/MC/2008 (“the Maldivian profit suit”)) for wrongful termination of employment and compensation.4 In that action, the Civil Court of the Maldives found that the Respondent was an employee of SJM5 (see [30] of the GD, and
Before the Judge, broadly, two main issues were raised:
Apropos the First Issue, the Judge applied
In expressing his reservations about
Turning to the Second Issue, the Judge applied what is commonly called “the
After considering the evidence, the Judge came to the tentative view that (as mentioned earlier at
Moving on to the second stage of the
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