WYNO Marine Pte Ltd (In Liquidation) v Lim Teck Cheng and Others (Koh Chye Heng and Others, Third Parties)

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Judge: Choo Han Teck JC
• Judgment Date: 18 January 2000
• Neutral Citation: [2000] SGHC 10
• Court: High Court (Singapore)
• Published date: 11 March 2013
• Year: 2000
• Plaintiff Counsel: K Shanmugam SC and Ashok Kumar [Allen & Gledhill]
• Defendant Counsel: S Selvam [Ramdas & Wong],Monoj Kumar Roy [Roy & Partners],Benjamin Goh Kay Poh [Bernard, Rada & Partners]
• Citation: [2000] SGHC 10

JUDGMENT:

ORAL JUDGMENT

1. I am asked to review the award of costs by the learned assistant registrar in respect of the bills of costs by the plaintiffs, first Third Party and third Third Party. His initial awards were $390,000, $290,000 and $240,000 respectively. At the parties’ request for a review, the learned assistant registrar revised his awards to $485,000, $270,000 and $210,000 respectively.

2. Mr Shanmugam SC submits that the work done would easily justify an award of up to $900,000 for the plaintiffs alone, but he says that in any event it should be more fairly pegged around $750,000.

3. The two Third Parties are content with their revised awards, but Mr Selvam for the first defendant asks that these awards be revised lower especially if the plaintiffs’ costs are revised upwards.

4. It was submitted by Mr Shanmugam SC, without challenge by Mr Selvam that the learned assistant registrar assessed the overall costs payable to be $920,000 and then proceeded to apportion this sum among the three claiming parties. There is no written grounds from the assistant registrar to confirm that this was the approach he took. However, on review, he revised his awards by reducing the costs to the two third parties, and increasing the costs to the plaintiffs, beyond the total amount reduced from the Third Parties therefore increasing the overall payment to be made by the first defendant.

5. The governing principle in a review of the taxation of costs is clearly set out in the Court of Appeal decision in Diversey (Far East) Pte Ltd v Chai Chung Ching Chester & Ors (No. 2) [1993] 1 SLR 542. The decision delivered by the learned Rajendran J. favours a non-interference approach to the awards by the taxation officer on the basis that such awards are matters of judicial discretion. It follows therefore, that unless a wrong principle was applied in the assessment of the costs, the award should stand.

6. However, there are instances such as this in which there are no written grounds to indicate what principles had been applied. I note Mr Shanmugam SC’s submission (supported by Mr Roy and Mr Goh) that the assistant registrar first assessed the global amount and then apportioned that to the three claiming parties. If, that is so, in my humble view, it would be an application of a wrong principle for the simple reason that it proceeded with no basis for arriving at the global sum. The consideration of a gross overall sum is relevant in cases where the bill is put up by a single party, but not where more than one party’s bills are being assessed together. Keeping the overall sum...