Woo Koon Chee v Scandinavian Boiler Service (Asia) Pte Ltd and others
Judge | Chao Hick Tin JA |
Judgment Date | 24 September 2010 |
Neutral Citation | [2010] SGCA 35 |
Defendant Counsel | Sarbjit Singh Chopra (Lim & Lim),Adrian Tan Gim Hai and Aaron Kok Ther Chien (Drew & Napier LLC) |
Docket Number | Civil Appeal No 21 of 2010 |
Published date | 05 October 2010 |
Year | 2010 |
Citation | [2010] SGCA 35 |
Hearing Date | 18 May 2010 |
Court | Court of Three Judges (Singapore) |
Plaintiff Counsel | Raymond Lye Hoong Yip and Yeo Wen Si Cheryl-Ann (Citilegal LLC) |
Subject Matter | Civil Procedure |
This interlocutory appeal raised a procedural issue arising from a dispute concerning the completion of the sale and purchase of shares, owned by the Appellant in the 1
Pursuant to certain legal proceedings (Suit No 53 of 2008) which we need not go into, Woo Bih Li J ordered on 27 April 2009, by consent of the parties (“the Consent Order”), that the “2
The valuer, Stone Forest Corporate Advisory Pte Ltd (“Valuer”) was appointed on 27 May 2009. The Consent Order prescribed that the completion of the sale and purchase of the Appellant’s shares was to take place within three weeks after the Valuer had furnished its Valuation Report to the parties. The Valuation Report was finally released on 8 December 2009. However, on 29 December 2009, three weeks after the release of the Valuation Report, the sale and purchase of the shares had still not taken place. This was despite the fact that the solicitors for the 2
On 30 December 2009, the Appellant’s newly appointed solicitors wrote to the Relevant Respondents’ solicitors requesting for more time to respond to the latter’s letter of 22 December 2009. The Relevant Respondents agreed to give the Appellant more time and a fresh request was sent by the Relevant Respondents’ solicitors to the Appellant’s new solicitors requiring completion of the sale and purchase of the shares by 5 January 2010. However, when 5 January 2010 arrived, the Appellant’s solicitors requested, once again, for more time. Accordingly, the sale and purchase did not take place. On 7 January 2010, the Relevant Respondents applied by way of Summons No 76 of 2010 (“Summons No 76”) for a direction that any Assistant Registrar and/or the Registrar of the Supreme Court be authorised to sign the share transfer forms on behalf of the Appellant so as to effect completion of the sale and purchase of the shares as directed under the Consent Order.
The decision below Summons No 76 was heard by a Judicial Commissioner in the High Court (“the Judge”). In opposing the Summons, the Appellant ran three arguments before the Judge:
The Judge made short shrift of these arguments. With respect to (a), he felt that the authority cited by the Appellant’s solicitors,
In connection with (b), the Judge noted that there “(was) no obstacle to the [Appellant] challenging the [V]aluation [R]eport in a separate legal action”. And finally, in regard to (c), he was of the view that it could not be the case that a consent order could “only be enforced under O 45 r 8 of the [Rules of Court] by a further action and another court order”.
Accordingly, the Judge allowed the Relevant Respondents’ application in Summons No 76 and granted an order of court in the following terms:
In this appeal, we were primarily concerned with two questions: (a) whether the Relevant Respondents ought to have started a fresh action to enforce the Consent Order; and (b) whether the Relevant Respondents were entitled to relief under O 45 r 8 of the Rules of Court.
Whether the Relevant Respondents ought to have started a fresh action to enforce the Consent Order In
42/1/6. Consent judgments and orders . The terms of a settlement agreement may be enforced by a separate action, assuming the agreement has the status of a legally binding contract. (SeeGreen v Rozen [1955] 1 WLR 741;Deans Property v Land Estates Apartments [1994] 2 SLR 198;Tong Lee Hwa v Chin Ah Kwi [1971] 2 MLJ 75.) …However,
the advantage of embodying the terms of the settlement in a consent judgment or order is that it may be automatically enforced in the event of non-compliance (as in the case of any other judgment or order) :A consent judgment or order is meant to be the formal result and expression of an agreement already arrived at between the parties to proceedings embodied in an order of the court. The fact of its being so expressed puts the parties in a different position from the position of those who have simply entered into an ordinary agreement. It is, of course, enforceable while it stands, and a party affected by it cannot, if he conceives he is entitled to relief from its operation, simply wait until it is sought to be enforced against him, and then raise by way of defence the matters in respect of which he desires to be relieved. He must, when once it has been completed, obey it, unless and until he can get it set aside in proceedings duly constituted for the purpose. [Wilding v Sanderson [1897] 2 Ch 534, at 543, per Byrne J][emphasis added]
On the above proposition of the law, which we endorse, it would follow that the Relevant Respondents were entitled to initiate execution proceedings, like Summons No 76, to enforce the Consent Order. There was no necessity for the Relevant Respondents to institute a fresh action to compel due compliance with the Consent Order.
As we saw it, there appeared to be some misunderstanding on the part of the solicitors for the Appellant as to what was decided in
… [w]here the parties settle or compromise pending proceedings, whether before, at or during the trial, the settlement or compromise constitutes a new...
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