chwee kin keong v digilandmall high court

53 He claimed that seeing the same price on the Digilandmall website confirmed his view that there had been no mistake. Indeed this appears to be the underlying rationale for the unique legal characteristics attributed to an invitation to treat; see Grainger & Son v Gough [1896] AC 325 at 333334, Esso Petroleum Ltd v Commissioners of Customs & Excise [1976] 1All ER 117 at 126. The defendant, on the other hand, contends that the law should not penalise a party who has unwittingly and genuinely made a unilateral mistake which was known or ought to have been known by the plaintiffs. (See for example the approach in, 142 The plaintiffs were bound by personal relationships as well as past and present common commercial interests. Scorpio: 13/01/20 01:17 what hp online?? The court held that the acceptance has been completed once it is posted although here, the defendants actually did not receive the letter before they sold it to someone else. Why? It is not in dispute that the defendant made a genuine error. The quintessential approach of the law is to, 106 In the Singapore context, the first port of call when confronted with issues of contract law is inevitably Professor Andrew Phangs treatise on. 6 On Wednesday, 8January 2003 between 3.00pm and 4.00pm, DILs employees conducted a training session at the defendants premises. , In mutual mistake, the parties misunderstand each other and are at cross-purposes. Delivery was merely a timing issue. 25 The mass e-mail at 2.58am is cursorily dismissed by counsel for the plaintiffs as poor use of language that ought not to be taken literally in light of the early hours of the morning. China-Singapore "One Belt One Road" International Business Cases Digest Part 1 -"" () 457-463 (2020, published by the Singapore and People's Republic of China Supreme Courts . I granted leave to both parties to file applications to amend the pleadings. He was also involved in initiating the Channel NewsAsia report (see [78] and [79] infra). The plaintiffs assert they were not aware of the defendants mistake when they placed their orders, and had believed the offer was genuine. He tried to convey the impression that it never struck him that a mistake in the price posting of the laser printer could have occurred. Imagine the effect of this negative publicity on your future sales! Solicita tu prueba. His revelation that he did not know if this is an error or whether HP will honour this purchase, not to mention the articulation of his hope that by the time you see this email, the price is still at S$66.00, 27 The first plaintiff obviously took the view that the advertisement should be acted upon urgently. 123 One view maintains that the mistaken party can either attempt to have the contract declared void at common law if the mistake is fundamental or radical, or alternatively seek a remedy in equity, which could include rescission. The very foundations of predictability, certainty and efficacy, underpinning contractual dealings, will be undermined if the law and/or equity expands the scope of the mistake exception with alacrity or uncertainty. Yong Pung HowCJ in, [T]he function of the court is to try as far as practical experience allows, to ensure that the, Tan Sok Ling, Malcolm Tan and Mohan Das Vijayaratnam (Tan S L and Partners) for plaintiffs; Case name. His Internet research alone would have confirmed that. As the Channel NewsAsia report so succinctly summarised they saw a great opportunity and grabbed it. The rules of offer and acceptance are satisfied and the parties are of one mind. It was held that the contract between the parties was void. The current general approach is correctly stated in Professor Jeffrey Pinslers Singapore Court Practice 2003 (LexisNexis, 2003) at para20/5/7: An amendment may be allowed even after both parties have made their closing submissions. 78 In a Channel NewsAsia report datelined 15January 2003, it was reported that: Two of the customers, Mark Yeow and Malcolm Tan, have already spoken to their lawyers. If he was prepared to commit this view in writing to a larger circle of 54 friends and business associates, 47 Not content with making his own purchases, he woke up his brother and transacted 330 units on his behalf. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not reflect the views of LawTeacher.net. Doctrines and Institutions of Responsible Government. We can understand why the decision in Bell v Lever Bros Ltd did not find favour with Lord DenningMR. An equitable jurisdiction to grant rescission on terms where a common fundamental mistake has induced a contract gives greater flexibility than a doctrine of common law which holds the contract void in such circumstances. At 4.16am he placed another order for one laser printer, by credit card, on the HP website. The jurisdiction asserted in the former case has not developed. 136 First, it was suggested that no contracts had been formed as all the contracts were subject to availability and that a failure to adhere to the directive call to enquire prevented the contracts from coming into existence. Their conduct in pursuing their claims cannot by any stretch of the imagination be characterised as having the slightest colour of being legitimate regardless of whether the subjective or objective theories are applied and whether common law or equity is applied in adjudicating this matter. In Chwee Kin Keong v. Digilandmall.com Pte Ltd ,1 one of the defendant's employees mistakenly uploaded the contents of a training template onto the defendant's website, resulting in the retail price of S$3,854 for a commercial laser printer on the website being replaced with the figure S$66. The reach of and potential response(s) to such an advertisement are however radically different. 89 In the circumstances, I had little hesitation in allowing the amendments sought by the defendant. Furthermore, they relied on a passage from, At the trial leave to amend particulars will as a rule be refused (, 84 It is axiomatic that a court will generally be cautious if not reluctant to effect any amendments once the hearing has commenced; even more so once the evidential phase of the proceedings has been completed. This can be supported by the decision of the High Court of Singapore in the case of Chwee Kin Keong v. Digilandmall.com Pte Ltd, in which Judicial Commissioner Rajah argued that "the party who selects the means of communication should bear the consequences of any unexpected events" . The first and fifth plaintiffs ordered exactly a hundred laser printers each. After receiving the e-mail from the first plaintiff, he visited the relevant HP website pages. 52 He then called the second plaintiff on his handphone and informed him that he intended to purchase 50 laser printers. Arrival can also be immaterial unless a recipient accesses the e-mail, but in this respect e-mail does not really differ from mail that has to be opened. Suggested Citation: Seng, Daniel Kiat Boon, Quoine Pte Ltd v B2C2 Ltd: A Commentary (June 2020). He opted to pay for all his purchases by cash on delivery. In addition, each of the confirmatory e-mail responses states at the outset: [W]e will be calling you in the near future to deliver the products to the address shown below. It is significant that some of the plaintiffs had never made any prior Internet purchases before that eventful morning. This may be too high a price to pay in this area of the law. Articles 11 (1) Country Singapore. be rebutted" (per Salmon LJ in Jones v. Padavatton (1969)). The decision of the British Columbia Court of Appeal in, 25 The law of mistake was discussed in depth by McLachlinCJBC in. V K Rajah JC. This is a disingenuous contention that desperately attempts to palliate their conduct in the subject transactions. They assert that spending only $105,996 to procure laser printers with an actual market value of $6,189,524 is wholly irrelevant; they are entitled to a good bargain. chwee kin keong v digilandmall high court. So its going to be our reputation at stake, we thought we had a successful transaction.. The modern approach in contract law requires very little to find the existence of consideration. Errors may incur wholly unexpected, and sometimes untoward, consequences as these proceedings so amply demonstrate. In addition to the law of (especially, unilateral) mistake, issues relating to the formation of a contract will be considered (including the law relating to offer and . The payment mode selected by the third plaintiff was cash on delivery. 92 The Electronics Transaction Act (Cap88, 1999Rev Ed) (ETA) places Internet contractual dealings on a firmer footing. There cannot be any legitimate expectation of enforcement on the part of the non-mistaken party seeking to take advantage of appearances. This was presumably to render the training more lifelike. The same view is echoed in Halsburys Laws of Singapore vol7 (Butterworths Asia, 2000) at [80.164]. Scorpio: 13/01/20 01:46 hahahaha yeah lor .. aiyah why u only buy 3????? Introduction The decision of V.K. 31 He admitted receiving a call from the first plaintiff at about 2.00am but claimed the first plaintiff merely apprised him of a good deal. In the eyes of Singapore law, purported contracts entered into in similar circumstances are void ab initio. The fact that it may have been negligent is not a relevant factor in these proceedings. He appears to have been in constant communication with the second plaintiff and to have received and read the mass e-mail from the first plaintiff after he placed his first purchase order. It would be fair to say that such a person should not have any legitimate expectation that the contract in question will be either respected or sanctioned by court. The fourth plaintiffs single transaction with the Digilandmall website was confirmed by a similar automated response stating Successful Purchase Confirmation from Digilandmall. In a, WHILE surfing the Net at about 2am on Monday, MrTan Wei Teck stumbled upon an offer, 82 The plaintiffs strenuously opposed the defendants amendments principally on the ground it was made at a late juncture. 327. The first plaintiffs riposte, should such a situation come to pass, was to sue them lor. in the High Court decision of Chwee Kin Keong v Digilandmall.com Pte Ltd,2 from the perspective of economics. Chwee Kin Keong decision - Chwee Kin Keong and Others v Digilandmall Pte Ltd [2004] 2 SLR 594; - Studocu Caso chwee kin keong and others digilandmall.com pte ltd slr sghc 71 suit no: suit decision 12 apr 2004 date: court: coram: counsel: high court rajah jc tan sok IgnorarExperimenta 'Pergunta a um Especialista' Pergunta a um especialista This is clearly a mistake as they could not possible be sold for an amount that in a commercial situation. The sixth plaintiff is precluded from asserting his ignorance. While this case needs to be treated with some caution, as it appears to integrate concepts of law and equity, I respectfully agree with the approach in so far as it deals with deemed knowledge. The other knows, or must be taken to know, of his mistake. It stands to reason that if a party shuts its eyes to the obvious, the party is being neither honest nor reasonable, and ought to be affixed with knowledge. The plaintiffs could not coherently explain why neither they nor their lawyers had not attempted to correct the press reports at the material juncture. Chwee Kin Keong and Others v Digilandmall.com Pte Ltd [2004] 2 SLR 594; [2004] SGHC 71 Suit No: Suit 202/2003/E Decision Date: 12 Apr 2004 Court: High Court Coram: V K Rajah JC Counsel: Tan Sok Ling, Malcolm Tan and Mohan Das Vijayaratnam (Tan S L and Partners) for plaintiffs, Philip Fong Yeng Fatt and Doris Chia Ming Lai (Harry Elias Pginas: 93: High Court - Suit n 202 of 2003. From time to time they communicate with each other, 4 The defendant is a company that sells information technology (IT) related products over the Internet to consumers. It has been a fertile source of academic debate, but in practice it has given rise to a handful of cases that have merely emphasised the confusion of this area of our jurisprudence. It does not purport to regulate e-commerce but attempts to facilitate the usage of e-commerce by equating the position of electronic records with that of written records, thus elevating the status of electronic signatures to that of legal signatures. It appears that he was also in touch with the fifth plaintiff as evidenced by an e-mail sent later that morning by the fifth plaintiff to both him and the second plaintiff containing research, 52 He then called the second plaintiff on his handphone and informed him that he intended to purchase 50 laser printers. The case involved the sale of printers by the defendant at a price of S$66. Given its global reach and ever changing technological advancements, Internet usage will pose a myriad of issues for resolution. He said he had by then discovered from his Internet searches that the price of the laser printer was in the region of $3,000. Section11 of the ETA expressly provides that offers and acceptances may be made electronically. Failure to do so could also result in calamitous repercussions. There were no such discussions with potential buyers. There is one important exception to this principle. This constituted more than a quarter of the total number of laser printers ordered. In the Singapore context a similar approach has been adopted by the Court of Appeal in, 105 It is not only reasonable but right that the objective appearance of a contract should not operate in favour of a party who is aware, in the eyes of the law, of the true state of affairs when, for instance, there is real misapprehension on the part of the mistaken party and when the actual reality of the situation is starkly obvious. Rajah J.C. in the Singapore High Court in Chwee Kin Keong v. Digilandmall.com Pte. HIGH COURT. Case law Chwee Kin Keong v Digilandmallcom Pte Ltd suggests that General Rule. I agree that this exception should be kept within a very narrow compass. Other Jurisdictions. This was not noticed by the company until over 4,000 printers were ordered. Notwithstanding some real differences with posting, it could be argued cogently that the postal rule should apply to e-mail acceptances; in other words, that the acceptance is made the instant the offer is sent. There must be consensus ad idem. 105 It is not only reasonable but right that the objective appearance of a contract should not operate in favour of a party who is aware, in the eyes of the law, of the true state of affairs when, for instance, there is real misapprehension on the part of the mistaken party and when the actual reality of the situation is starkly obvious. If the common law continues to take precedence, then an essential mistake would void a contract ab initio. The object of the exercise is to determine what each party intended, or must be deemed to have intended. He appeared distinctly uncomfortable during several phases of his cross-examination and his answers on crucial points were evasive and often vague.. His evidence in relation to the level and nature of communications he had with the second and third plaintiffs on the morning in question lacked candour. While they did not invariably admit that their searches were made prior to each of the respective transactions, it was plain that they did not tell the whole truth about, 149 It is clear from the authorities reviewed that such a contract, if entered into by a party with actual or presumed knowledge of an error, is void from the outset. I note that Chitty at para5-089, fn25 sagely opines that Taylor v Johnson does not represent English law, at least, where the other party knows that a mistake has been made. Having pointed out 6 that a court 'will generally be cautious if not reluctant to effect any amendments once the hearing has commenced; even more so once the evidential phase of the . Indeed, the time may have come for the common law to shed the pretence of searching for consideration to uphold commercial contracts. All previous discussions and negotiations between the parties proceeded on the basis of the price being fixed at so much per piece. The knowledge that the offer is not meant according to its literal terms simply displaces the objective theory of contract. 98 Once an offer is sent over the Internet, the sender loses control over the route and delivery time of the message. 83 The defendant maintained that there was no element of surprise and/or prejudice arising from the amendments. In terms of chronological sequence, the initial page accessed was the shopping cart, followed by checkout-order . The fact that the acceptance was automatically generated by a computer software cannot in any manner exonerate the defendant from responsibility. Desmond: 13/01/20 01:47 u make me greedy, Scorpio: 13/01/20 01:47 ok lor if you insist .

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chwee kin keong v digilandmall high court