Telemedia Pacific Group Ltd v Credit Agricole (Suisse) SA (Yeh Mao-Yuan, third party)

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Judge: Choo Han Teck J
• Judgment Date: 19 February 2013
• Neutral Citation: [2013] SGHC 40
• Court: High Court (Singapore)
• Docket Number: Suit No 379 of 2012 (Registrar’s Appeal No 17 of 2013)
• Year: 2013
• Published date: 21 February 2013
• Hearing Date: 04 February 2013
• Plaintiff Counsel: John Wang Shing Chun and Eugene Leong Fu Sheng (RHTLaw Taylor Wessing LLP)
• Defendant Counsel: Benedict Teo Chun-Wei and Ng Sook Zhen (Drew & Napier LLC)
• Subject Matter: Civil Procedure
• Citation: [2013] SGHC 40

Choo Han Teck J:

In this action, the plaintiff, a company incorporated in the British Virgin Islands sued the defendant bank for breach of mandate in acting on the unauthorised signature of the third party. The defendant claimed that the third party was an authorised signatory. The thrust of the plaintiff’s claim was that the defendant acted on the third party’s unauthorised instructions, transferred 225 million shares in NexGen (which the plaintiff had deposited with the defendant) to parties not entitled to the shares.

The defendant joined the third party in this suit but the common position pleaded by the defendant and the third party was that the third party was an authorised signatory of the plaintiff. The defendant averred that the third party had represented himself to be an authorised signatory of the plaintiff. The defendant averred that in documents which it will rely upon at trial the third party had acknowledged that he was an authorised signatory. However, the defendant also averred that the third party had represented to the defendant’s representative in October 2011 that one Hartanto knew that the third party was authorised to operate the plaintiff’s account on his single signature. The third party applied for further and better particulars of the statement above and specifically sought the names of the defendant’s representatives to whom the third party was alleged to have made the representation. In his written submission, Mr John Wang, counsel for the third party, reiterated that the third party “maintains that at all material times, he was an authorised signatory of the plaintiff’s account, and was authorised to operate the plaintiff’s account singly”.

The assistant registrar dismissed the third party’s application for the particulars sought and he appealed. Mr Wang relied on para 18/12/2 of the Singapore Civil Procedure 2013 (“the White Book”) and quoted the following passage in his submission:

General—The requirement to give particulars reflects the overriding principle that the litigation between the parties, and particular the trial, should be conducted fairly, openly and without surprises...The function of particulars is accordingly:

(1) to inform the other side of the nature of the case that they have to meet... (2) to prevent the other side from being taken by surprise at the trial... (3) to enable the other side to know with what evidence they ought to be prepared and to prepare for trial. Mr Wang then referred to Sharikat Logistics Pte Ltd v Ong Boon Chuan [2011] SGHC 196, a decision of this court and to paragraph 10 of that decision where I held as follows:

In the first category of particulars sought, the defendants...