19 October 2021
On 18 October 2021, the Appellate Division of the High Court handed down judgment in Engine Holdings Asia Pte Ltd v JTrust Asia Pte Ltd, dismissing Engine’s application for leave to appeal from the lower courts’ refusal to strike out JTrust’s action as being an abuse of process. The case provided the Appellate Division with an opportunity to clarify the circumstances in which a subsequent action may be an abuse of process, in light of the claimant’s failure to inform the Court or other party in a first set of proceedings that the claimant may have a related claim against a non-party.
The Appellate Division has confirmed that, as a matter of Singapore law, there is no mandatory requirement for a claimant to disclose in a first action that there may be another claim arising out of the same facts, breach of which will result in a subsequent action being an abuse of process.
A copy of the judgment can be found here.
Chan Leng Sun SC and Colin Liew act for the plaintiff, JTrust.