Werner Samuel Vuillemin v Overseas-Chinese Banking Corporation Limited

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Judge: Chiah Kok Khun
• Judgment Date: 29 January 2018
• Neutral Citation: [2018] SGDC 25
• Court: District Court (Singapore)
• Docket Number: District Court Suit No. 3051 of 2013, District Court—Summons No. 3920 of 2017, RAS No. 3 of 2018
• Published date: 13 February 2018
• Year: 2018
• Hearing Date: 18 January 2018
• Plaintiff Counsel: Mr Werner Samuel Vuillemin (The plaintiff) in-person
• Defendant Counsel: Mr Ang Leong Hao (Hong Lianghao) (Rajah & Tann Singapore LLP)
• Subject Matter: Civil procedure,search order
• Citation: [2018] SGDC 25

District Judge Chiah Kok Khun:

This is an application filed by the Plaintiff for a search order. I heard and dismissed the application on 18 January 2018. The Plaintiff has appealed my decision. My grounds of decision as set out here are substantially the same as the oral decision I delivered on 18 January 2018.

The Defendant is a bank operating in Singapore. The Plaintiff is a Swiss national. He does not reside in Singapore. On 12 February 1999, the Plaintiff rented a safe deposit box (No. 4867M) (“safe deposit box”) from the Defendant at its branch located at its old premises in Specialist Shopping Centre. Some 10 years ago, in 2007, the Defendant moved its branch at Specialist Shopping Centre to premises at Orchard Point.¹ Before moving, the Defendant wrote to the Plaintiff requesting that the Plaintiff either relocate, or discontinue the safe deposit box. The Defendant notified the Plaintiff that if the safe deposit box was not relocated or discontinued by 17 June 2007, the Defendant would open the safe deposit box and keep the contents on behalf of the Plaintiff, in a sealed security bag (“Sealed Bag”), at a fee. The Plaintiff did not respond and on 28 June 2007, the Defendant opened the safe deposit box. The Plaintiff’s items found in the safe deposit box were collected, accounted for and recorded by external accountants, M/S LTC Associates (“Inventory List”), and kept in the Sealed Bag.

It should be noted that the Defendant’s terms and conditions governing the hiring of safe deposit boxes provided for the relocation of safe deposit boxes and the opening of the boxes by the Defendant.²

The Plaintiff is aggrieved by the Defendant’s opening of the safe deposit box, and also disputes the notifications and attempts by the Defendant to contact him before the safe deposit box was opened. The Plaintiff filed a writ on 7 October 2013 and claims an order for delivery by the Defendant to him of contents kept in the safe deposit box. The Plaintiff also claims (in his own words),³ “[a] Court order that the Defendants are responsible and/or liable to the Plaintiff for any mishandling of the [safe deposit box] contents and of the whole break into proceedings of the [safe deposit box] and all triggered through the Defendants’ breaking into the [safe deposit box] and into the receptacle”; damages, interest and costs.⁴

It is noted that the Plaintiff has not specified the damages he is claiming for under the writ. Instead, he states that he suffered the following losses:⁵ costs of 80 to 100 hours of legal expenses; costs of 648 days of hotel accommodation in Singapore; costs of travelling between Europe and Singapore; and costs of travelling between Thailand and Singapore.

The Plaintiff filed the present application for a search order to inspect, photograph or photocopy, and deliver into his safekeeping:- the Sealed Bag containing the items which were formerly stored in the safe deposit box; and (i) video; (ii) camera; (iii) CCTV or such other electronic recording; (iv) cam-corder; (v) audio recording of the forced opening of the safe deposit box on 28 June 2007 and on such other days when the Defendant opened the receptacle and/or anything containing the contents of the safe deposit box.

The Plaintiff also seeks an order which would allow him to search any and all of the Defendant's 49 branches/locations in Singapore. The Plaintiff filed the present application on 17 November 2017, more than four years after he filed the writ in the case.

Since the filing of the writ, the Plaintiff had escalated the case to the High Court at least twice. In one of these instances, the High Court had occasion to deliver written grounds of decision when the Plaintiff applied unsuccessfully to the High Court for extension of time to appeal against an order for security for costs given by the District Court. These are the grounds of decision of the Honourable Justice Woo Bih Li, in Werner Samuel Vuillemin v Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp Ltd [2017] 3 SLR 501 (“High Court Decision”). I will allude to the High Court Decision below.

The first aspect of the application that is immediately striking is the fact that the Plaintiff has taken more than four years since the filing of the writ to make the application for a search order. The basis of the search order is that the Defendant would destroy/tamper with the Sealed Bag. If so, it is inexplicable why the Plaintiff had waited till now, four years after the issuance of the writ, to take out...