Surface Stone Pte Ltd v Tay Seng Leon and another
Jurisdiction | Singapore |
Judge | Shaun Leong Li Shiong AR |
Judgment Date | 05 October 2011 |
Neutral Citation | [2011] SGHC 223 |
Court | High Court (Singapore) |
Docket Number | Suit No 33 of 2011 (Summons No 3725 of 2011) |
Published date | 10 October 2011 |
Year | 2011 |
Hearing Date | 20 September 2011 |
Plaintiff Counsel | Chua Beng Chye and Raelene Pereira (Rajah & Tann LLP) |
Defendant Counsel | Daniel Koh and Radika Mariapan (Eldan Law LLP) |
Subject Matter | Civil Procedure,Discovery of documents,Order 24 rule 5(3)(c) of the Rules of Court (Cap 322, R 5, 2006 Rev Ed),Analytical Framework to determine Relevancy of documents under Order 24 rule 5(3)(c) (the "train of inquiry" analysis),Electronic Discovery,Inspection of compound documents,Inspection Protocol in Appendix E Part 2 of Practice Direction No 3 of 2009,Rebuttable Presumption that Inspection Protocol is required for compound documents,Cross Jurisdiction Survey on Inspection of compound documents,Principle of Proportionality,Implementation of safeguards to limit the scope of Inspection |
Citation | [2011] SGHC 223 |
The advent of new technology has brought about challenges to litigation that (arguably) only technology can resolve. In the midst of considering applications for specific discovery under the “train of inquiry” limb, it should be borne in mind that the genesis of the
Factual background of application…since certainly the beginning of this decade, increasing numbers of public bodies and private businesses, not to mention individuals, have gone over to creating, exchanging and storing their documentation and communicating with each other entirely by electronic means. The end result is that an enormous volume of information is now created, exchanged and stored only electronically. Email communication, word processed documents, spreadsheets and ever increasing numbers of other forms of electronically stored information ("ESI") now often form the entire corpus of the documentation held by companies and individuals who become involved in litigation. So the incidence of paper disclosure is becoming less and less prevalent though in some cases it may still be critical. and the incidence of the disclosure of electronically stored information, or ESI as it is known, is becoming more and more so.
What is more, the volume of the ESI, even in small organisations is immense, often, as in the case of email, because of the huge quantities of documents created (including wide-scale duplication) and the fact that the documents can exist in many different forms and locations so that they are not readily accessible except at significant cost. It is also commonplace for many individuals to have more than one email account – business, personal, web-mail (for example, Yahoo, Gmail, Hotmail etc.) When ESI is available, metadata (literally data about data) associated with it can easily be unintentionally altered by the very act of collection, which in some circumstances can have a detrimental effect on the document's evidential integrity. What is more, ESI can be moved about nationally and internationally, indiscriminately and at lightning speed…
This case concerns the plaintiff’s application, made under O 24 r 5(3)(
The plaintiff is a private limited company incorporated in Singapore, and carries on the business of procuring and supplying stones and tiles for building and construction. The first defendant was appointed a sales director of the plaintiff, and was also made a minority shareholder of the plaintiff (with 10% shareholding). His duties included procuring supplies of stones and tiles on behalf of the plaintiff, and carrying out sales and marketing of the plaintiff’s products and services. The second defendant (not directly involved in the present application), was employed by the plaintiff as a sales executive pursuant to an employment agreement dated 25 August 2009.
According to the first defendant, the plaintiff had, through a representative, written a letter on or about 18 January 2011 to several of the plaintiff’s customers, informing them that the plaintiff had suspended the first defendant’s duties as a director, and alleging that he had breached several duties owed to the plaintiff by making improper use of information acquired in order to obtain personal gain (the letter of 18 January 2011). On the same day, the plaintiff had allegedly prevented the first defendant from returning to the plaintiff’s office premises, and had confiscated the Western Digital hard disk.
On 19 January 2011, the plaintiff commenced Suit No 33 of 2011/M against the first and second defendants on the following pleaded claims:
The plaintiff also obtained an interim injunction on 20 January 2011 (the Order of Court dated 20 January 2011 was varied on 4 March 2011), to prohibit the defendants from; carrying on a business which competes with the plaintiff, soliciting the plaintiff’s suppliers, customers and employees, and disclosing certain information concerning certain projects undertaken by the plaintiff. Pursuant to the interim injunction Order, the first defendant was also directed to deliver up items including all laptop computers, desktop computers, hard drives, electronic and other storage materials containing information concerning the various projects undertaken by the plaintiff. The first defendant brought a counterclaim against the plaintiff for the alleged defamatory comments stated in the letter of 18 January 2011.
In the course of submissions, counsel for the first defendant disputed upon the relevancy of the devices sought to be discovered and inspected. It was also asserted, without any elaboration, that the discovery and inspection of the devices was not necessary (see first defendant’s written submissions at
Subject to the overriding principle of necessity in O 24 r 7, where the discovery sought must be necessary for disposing fairly of the proceedings or for saving costs (see
... documents to be produced are not confined to those, which would be evidence either to prove or to disprove any matter in question in the action ...
The doctrine seems to me to go farther than that and to go as far as the principle which I am about to lay down. It seems to me that every document relates to the matters in question in the action, which not only would be evidence upon any issue, but also which, it is reasonable to suppose, contains information which may - not which must - either directly or indirectly enable the party [requiring discovery] either to advance his own case or to damage the case of his adversary ... a document can properly be said to contain information which may enable the party [requiring discovery] to advance his own case or to damage the case of his adversary, if it is a document which may fairly lead him to a train of inquiry, which may have either of these two consequences.
It bears noting that the
To continue reading
Request your trial-
EQ Capital Investments Ltd v Sunbreeze Group Investments Ltd and others
...Town Club Pte Ltd [2002] 2 SLR(R) 465 at [35] and that of the Singapore High Court in Surface Stone Pte Ltd v Tay Seng Leon and another [2011] SGHC 223 at [10(a)]). Presently, there is nothing in the material before me which either raises a suspicion that there are further directly document......
-
Breezeway Overseas Ltd v UBS AG
...(Asia Pacific) Pte Ltd [2011] SGHC 61 (refd) Sanae Achar v Sci-Gen Ltd [2011] 3 SLR 967 (refd) Surface Stone Pte Ltd v Tay Seng Leon [2011] SGHC 223 (refd) Rules of Court (Cap 322, R 5, 2006 Rev Ed) O 24, O 24 r 1, O 24 r 5 (3) (c) , O 24 r 7 Freddy Lim (Lee & Lee) for the plaintiffs Tan Sh......
-
Dirak Asia Pte Ltd and another v Chew Hua Kok and another
...and inspection of documents known as “compound documents”, see the decision of Surface Stone Pte Ltd v. Tay Seng Leon and another [2011] SGHC 223. 2 See David D. Cross and Emily Kuwahara, E-Discovery and Cloud Computing: Control of ESI in the Cloud (EDDE Journal, Spring 2010, Vol 1, Issue 2......
-
DR ZAKIR ABDUL KARIM NAIK vs KULA SEGARAN A/L V MURUGESON
...of inquiry’ concept as follows: [11] (b) What amounts to relevance was discussed in Surface Stone Pte Ltd v Tay Seng Leon and Another [2011] SGHC 223, in reliance of the case of Compagnie Financiere du Pacifique v Peruvian Guano [1882] 11 QBD 55, where the court said: “It seems to me that e......
-
Civil Procedure
...v Astrata (Asia Pacific) Pte Ltd[2011] SGHC 61 (decided by the senior assistant registrar) and Surface Stone Pte Ltd v Tay Seng Leon[2011] SGHC 223 (decided by the assistant registrar). Electronic Filing System (EFS) 8.37 In Ong Jane Rebecca v PricewaterhouseCoopers[2011] 4 SLR 242, the thi......
-
WEATHERING THE EVOLVING LANDSCAPES OF ELECTRONIC DISCOVERY
...v Astrata (Asia Pacific) Pte Ltd[2011] SGHC 61. 139Global Yellow Pages Ltd v Promedia Directories Pte Ltd[2013] 3 SLR 758 at [41]. 140[2011] SGHC 223 at [92]. 141[2013] 3 SLR 758 at [40]. 142 Eric Robinson, “Practical Tips for APAC Discovery”, The Ediscovery Blog (20 May 2013) com/2013/05/2......