The "Xin Chang Shu"
Jurisdiction | Singapore |
Court | High Court (Singapore) |
Judge | Steven Chong J |
Judgment Date | 18 May 2016 |
Neutral Citation | [2016] SGHC 93 |
Citation | [2016] SGHC 93 |
Docket Number | Admiralty in Rem No 239 of 2014 (Summon No 1038 of 2016) |
Published date | 20 May 2016 |
Defendant Counsel | Toh Kian Sing, SC, Koh See Bin and Jonathan Tan (Rajah & Tann Singapore LLP) |
Hearing Date | 01 April 2016 |
Plaintiff Counsel | Lawrence Teh and Khoo Eu Shen (Rodyk & Davidson LLP) |
Date | 18 May 2016 |
Subject Matter | Civil Procedure,Appeals,Leave |
Disgruntled litigants pondering over an appeal to the Court of Appeal against a decision made on an interlocutory application have long been plagued by the question of whether leave of court is necessary to do so. Tests have been developed by the courts to address this issue, and recent legislative amendments have been made to clarify this vexing area of civil procedure. Nevertheless, the question continues to come before the courts (as I previously noted in
In the context of admiralty practice, the direction of the courts is especially necessary as the
Given my full judgment in
The parties then brought the following applications: (a) Summons No 6364 of 2014 (“SUM 6364/2014”) by the defendant to strike out the writ, set aside the warrant of arrest, and for damages for wrongful arrest; and (b) Summons No 6218 of 2014 (“SUM 6218/2014”) by the plaintiff for a stay of proceedings in favour of arbitration under ss 6 and 7 of the International Arbitration Act (Cap 143A, 2002 Rev Ed) (“the IAA”).3 These applications led to the registrar’s appeals which I heard together on 23 September 2015:4
After the hearing on 23 September 2015, I dismissed the plaintiff’s appeals in RA 224/2015 and RA 225/2015 while I reserved judgment in relation to RA 226/2015.5 After considering the matter, I delivered my judgment for RA 226/2015 on 4 December 2015 in which I made two orders in favour of the defendant. First, I ordered the plaintiff to pay the defendant damages to be assessed for the wrongful arrest of the Vessel from 10 to 12 December 2014 (
Second, I set aside the plaintiff’s warrant of arrest. Although damages for wrongful arrest could be awarded even if the warrant of arrest was not set aside, a warrant of arrest could not exist without an issuance of a valid
On 4 January 2016, the plaintiff filed its notice of appeal (“the NOA”) in CA/CA No 2 of 2016 (“CA/CA 2/2016”) against the Wrongful Arrest order in RA 226/2015 on the premise that no leave was required to do so. In response, the defendant applied,
Further, on 4 January 2016, the plaintiff commenced CA/OS No 1 of 2016 (“CA/OS 1/2016”) seeking an extension of time to file a notice of appeal against the order striking out its writ in RA 224/2015, as well as the order dismissing its stay application in RA 225/2015. As noted above, these orders were made some three months ago on 23 September 2015. It is common ground that no leave is required to appeal against the striking out order in RA 224/2015. But by filing the present application, the plaintiff has acknowledged that it requires leave of court to appeal against the order in RA 225/2015 pursuant to para (
The Court of Appeal then issued its judgment in
Here, at the time when the NOA was filed, the plaintiff took the view that no leave was required. The present application was, however, prompted by the defendant’s application in CA/SUM 7/2016 to set aside the NOA and even then, it was only filed on 2 March 2016, well after the stipulated time. The plaintiff now seeks,
I dismissed Prayer 3 summarily following the hearing on 1 April 2016 as I found the substantial delay in applying for leave to appeal against the order in RA...
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