The essential point remains: will prejudice be caused and/or are any policy considerations called into play. 114 For good measure, I should allude that the plaintiffs in their written submissions concede that in order to establish that mistake is operative at common law, the defendant has to show in this instant case that the plaintiffs each had actual or constructive knowledge of the mistaken pricing. Errors may incur wholly unexpected, and sometimes untoward, consequences as these proceedings so amply demonstrate. 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. He worked in an accounting firm, Ernst and Young, for three years. 64 The fifth plaintiff was vague and tentative in many crucial aspects of his evidence. All previous discussions and negotiations between the parties proceeded on the basis of the price being fixed at so much per piece. This gives their courts a broad and elastic jurisdiction to deal with commercially inappropriate behaviour. Market orders: order to be executed immediately at the best available price. He is also part of the Bel-Air network. A contract is normally concluded when an offer made by one party (the offeror) is accepted by the party to whom the offer has been made (the offeree). The following excerpts are particularly relevant: Desmond: 13/01/20 01:17 go hp online now. 30th Sep 2021 This, in a nutshell, is the issue at the heart of these proceedings. Having expressed my views on consideration, I should also add for good measure that, in any event, there is ample consideration. It seems to me that he was trying to tailor his evidence to fit neatly within the legal parameters of the plaintiffs case. This is not a case about bargain hunting which is a time honoured and perfectly legitimate pursuit. First, it is clear that the line of Australian and Canadian cases have broadened their equitable jurisdiction on the strength of dicta attributable principally to Lord Denning. 38 The second plaintiff came across as intelligent and resourceful. Singapore Law Blog 92 The Electronics Transaction Act (Cap88, 1999Rev Ed) (ETA) places Internet contractual dealings on a firmer footing. When giving evidence, he struck me as cautious, taking great pains to convey the impression that his numerous online enquiries that morning were routinely carried out without any real inkling that an error had occurred. 155 The Internet has revolutionised commerce and radically altered the manner in which commercial interaction currently takes place. Chwee Kin Keong v Digilandmall Pte Ltd The defendant, Digilandmall.com Pte Ltd, were an online IT company that sold related software and hardware from Singapore. Slade, in a well reasoned article written not long after, 128 The most significant judicial pronouncement supporting this view emanates from the recent English Court of Appeal in, Thus the premise of the equitys intrusion into the effects of the common law is that the common law rule in question is seen in the particular case to work injustice, and for some reason the common law cannot cure itself. 150 The plaintiffs have contended that this court ought to follow the decision in Taylor v Johnson and hold that the contract is not void under common law but voidable only in equity. Doctrines and Institutions of Responsible Government. 21 The first plaintiff must have realised at the outset that he would have to explain with a certain measure of credibility the purport and significance of all his Internet communications between 1.00am and 3.00am on 13January 2003. Contract Acceptance by Email - LawTeacher.net While these contentions were well within the scope of the evidence adduced and their respective lines of cross-examination, they appeared to transgress their respective pleadings. "Unilateral Mistake in Contract: Five Degrees of Fusion of Common Law a 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 . Both parties displayed a considerable amount of imagination in dealing with them. June 16, 2022; Posted by why do chavs wear tracksuits; 16 . The jurisdiction asserted in the former case has not developed. 95 The known availability of stock could be an important distinguishing factor between a physical sale and an Internet transaction. I hope by the time you see this email, the price is still at S$66.00 coz they might change it anytime. This new template was designed to facilitate instantaneous price changes allowing them to be simultaneously reflected in the relevant Internet web pages. 153 These statements of jurisprudence are of cardinal importance in understanding and fashioning the law of contract. In any event, it does not appear that she disclosed the whole truth of what she knew. If anything, certain portions of the affidavits raised even more doubts about the plaintiffs credibility. Chwee Kin Keong v Digilandmall.com (2005) - Singaporean case 3d printers sold for $66 instead of $3,800. The decision of V.K. Case law chwee kin keong v digilandmallcom pte ltd His own counsels description of him as careful and prudent only serves to corroborate this. The elements of an offer and acceptance are, 139 Next, the defendant contends that no consideration passed from the plaintiffs to them. Offer and acceptance - The analysis is structured around the An FAQ guide to electronic contracts in Singapore - Lexology He admitted in cross-examination to being the lawyer for this group of people when they had questions like these in the present proceedings. The plaintiffs refute that the error exonerates the defendant; they insist that a concluded contract is sacrosanct and must be honoured. A number of them have very close relationships, with some of them even sharing common business interests. Civil Procedure Pleadings . Counsel however contends that even if this e-mail were to be read literally, this should not affect the first plaintiffs own purchase that had taken place an hour earlier. Part of the training module included hands-on training with a new template for a Price Mass Upload function. Furthermore, unlike a fax or a telephone call, it is not instantaneous. The case of Chwee Kin Keong & Ors v Digilandmall.com Pte Ltd [2004] SGHC 71, and the decision by VK Rajah JC, has received much public attention. Desmond: 13/01/20 01:47 wasnt greedy before I tok to u. Scorpio: 13/01/20 01:47 yeah.. S$1 mio then no need to work liao?? The payment mode opted for was cash on delivery. Chwee Kin Keong v Digilandmall.com Pte Ltd [2005] 1 SLR 502: [2005] SGCA 2 Context: This Case deals with the issue of unilateral mistake. Rajah J.C. in the Singapore High Court in Chwee Kin Keong v. Digilandmall.com Pte. For example, in the Singapore High Court decision of Chwee Kin Keong v Digilandmall.com Pte Ltd [2004] 2 SLR 594 ("Digilandmall"), affirmed on appeal in Chwee Kin Keong v Digilandmall.com Pte Ltd [2005] 1 SLR 502 without considering this particular issue, V K Rajah JC (as he then was) observed, as follows (at [139]): 46 He was therefore aware, even before he made his first purchase, that the actual price of the laser printer was in the region of US$2,000. Prior to this he was an associate in the Intellectual Property and Technology Department of Allen & Gledhill. It is, in large measure, determined by making an objective appraisal of the exchanges between the parties. Quoine Pte Ltd v B2C2 Ltd: A Commentary - SSRN If the common law continues to take precedence, then an essential mistake would void a contract ab initio. CISG-online is a research platform dedicated to the law and practice of the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods adopted in Vienna on 11 April 1980 (CISG), as well as related areas of international commercial law. In common mistake, both parties make the same mistake. Lord Griffiths in Ketteman v Hansel Properties Ltd [1987] AC 189 at 220 stated: [T]o allow an amendment before a trial begins is quite different from allowing it at the end of the trial to give an apparently unsuccessful defendant an opportunity to renew the fight on an entirely different defence. This assertion is patently untrue. In submissions, his counsel attempted to play down the significance of both this conversation as well as the mass e-mail. The case went before both the High Court and the Court of Appeal. Quite apart from this singularly precise timing, his exchange with Ms Toh is noteworthy for the following reason: when he told her about the various concluded purchases of the laser printers, she immediately thought it was a mistake and that HP would not honour the contracts. 71 The sixth plaintiffs position can be dealt with very briefly. Unlike instances of fraud, where it is said fraud unravels the existing contract, in instances of unilateral mistake, the very existence of the contract is negatived there is no consensus. Any information contained in this case summary does not constitute legal advice and should be treated as educational content only. Both parties expressed that they wished to effect amendments to mirror evidence that had been adduced in the proceedings. The modern approach in contract law requires very little to find the existence of consideration. The transcript states that the third and the fifth plaintiffs saw a great opportunity and grabbed it. in the High Court decision of Chwee Kin Keong v Digilandmall.com Pte Ltd,2 from the perspective of economics. . In its pleaded case, the defendant asserts that the automated e-mail responses it sent out in the early hours of 13January 2003 did not confirm that stock of the laser printers were available and would be delivered. His communications with the fifth plaintiff, a lawyer, on the efficacy of the terms and conditions also lead to the ineluctable conclusion that he harboured anxieties whether this astoundingly good deal would be honoured when the error was discovered. Chwee Kin K eong and others . Who bears the risk of such mistakes? Nor is it disputed that Samuel Teo, or any of the other employees of the defendant, was unaware at all material times of the dramatic chain of events so unwittingly initiated by the former. To determine the profit potential, the second plaintiff had to take steps to ascertain the true market price of the laser printer which he did. Where either mutual or unilateral mistake is pleaded, the very existence of agreement is denied. Consideration was less than executory and non-existent. This could account for the substantial number of Canadian cases in this area of the law. He appeared to be consummately familiar with Internet practices and was forced to concede that he thought it was weird and unusual when he saw the number 55 on the relevant webpages in place of the actual product description. Altogether different considerations may arise if a party, at a late stage, seeks through an amendment to adduce further evidence to support that same amendment. In evidence he explained his conduct in the following manner: I felt that I had done all that was conceivably within my means to ensure that the Price was not a mistake. She opined that situations where unilateral mistake had been considered were those involving fraud or a very high degree of misconduct. Case Note: Singapore - CORE Offer and acceptances have to reach an intended recipient to be efective. 156 The plaintiffs claims are dismissed. What is urged is that, owing to a common error as to some fundamental fact, the agreement is robbed of all efficacy. In Canada, the latter suffices. As such, I would strongly appeal to you to reconsider your decision. He claimed he wanted to find out how much profit he could make. 76 On Monday, 13January 2003, at about 9.15am, an employee of the defendant received a call from a prospective customer inquiring whether the defendant was aware of the posted price of $66 for the laser printers on the HP website. I find it inconceivable, to say the least, that the fifth plaintiff would have placed an order for 100 laser printers without the conviction that it was in fact a current market model with a real and substantial resale value. The non-mistaken partys appreciation that there is no real offer on the contracts literal terms undermines the basis of the objective theory and necessarily imports the lack of subjective intention on the part of the mistaken party. When, however, the cases provoked by these factual situations are analysed, they will be seen to fall, not into three, but only two distinct legal categories. 122 For now it appears that a mistaken party can have two bites at the cherry. The recipient rule is therefore more convenient and relevant in the context of both instantaneous or near instantaneous communications. [2005] 1 SLR(R) 0502 Chwee Kin Keong and others v Digilandmall.com Pte The defendant also sells HP products on its own website at http://www.digiland.com (the Digilandmall website). The initial order for 30 laser printers was placed at round 3.45am while the second order for 300 units was placed at around 3.53am. Often the essence of good business is the use of superior knowledge. It should be noted that while the common law jurisdictions continue to wrestle over this vexed issue, most civil law jurisdictions lean towards the recipient rule. In Chwee Kin Keong and ors v Digilandmall.com Pte Ltd, 5 VK Rajah JC, as His Honour then was, decided against the rule-based approach in Moss v Malings. He acknowledged having had conversations with the other plaintiffs about how much money we can sell the printer and how much we can make and about storage space as well as how many units we intend to buy. Singapore Court of Appeal. 59 Upon duly accessing the HP website through the hyperlink sent to him by the second plaintiff, the fifth plaintiff ascertained that the laser printer was priced at $66. Chwee Kin Keong and others v Digilandmall.com Pte Ltd [2005] 1 SLR(R) 502; [2005] SGCA 2. 54 The fourth plaintiff admits that he had entertained the idea at the material time that the price posting could have been an error. It had consciously not inserted any limits to the number of products a buyer could purchase again, quite clearly, to solicit more business. I agree that this exception should be kept within a very narrow compass. In terms of chronological sequence, the initial page accessed was the shopping cart, followed by checkout-order . Unilateral Mistake at . Upon accessing the Digilandmall website and confirming that the printer was offered there at $66 as well, he placed a further order for 25 laser printers through that website at about 3.29am. 41 The second plaintiff seems to have redefined the facts to achieve his objective in these proceedings. 67 MsToh subsequently did some research on how companies which had committed similar mistakes over the Internet handled the aftermath. Court reference 202 of 2003. Despite the general views expressed in. Placing an advertisement on the Internet is essentially advertising or holding out to the world at large. Chwee Kin Keong vs Digilandmall.com - Free download as Powerpoint Presentation (.ppt / .pptx), PDF File (.pdf), Text File (.txt) or view presentation slides online. 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. There is often, but not inexorably, a co-relationship between the timing when the amendment is sought and the adverse consequences for the other party. No cash had been collected. , In mutual mistake, the parties misunderstand each other and are at cross-purposes. Having said that, this exception must always be prudently invoked and judiciously applied; the exiguous scope of this exception is necessary to give the commercial community confidence that commercial transactions will almost invariably be honoured when all the objective contractual indicia are satisfied. In support of the latter it might be argued that unlike a posting, e-mail communication takes place in a relatively short time frame. Hwa Lai Heng Ricky v DBS Bank Ltd and another appeal and another Vincent. 24 While the first plaintiff conceded that he had communicated to the second and third plaintiffs the existence of a good deal, he maintained he did not discuss the possibility of the pricing being a mistake. 103 The amalgam of factors a court will have to consider in risk allocation ought to include: (a) the need to observe the principle of upholding rather than destroying contracts, (b) the need to facilitate the transacting of electronic commerce, and. To that extent, his evidence that he subsequently dismissed the notion altogether is unacceptable. Singapore Comparative Law Review 2019 (SCLR 2019) - Issuu Administrative Law in Common Law Countries. Digilandmall.com Pte Ltd. High Court and Court of Appeal, recently, in a number of case . 4 The defendant is a company that sells information technology (IT) related products over the Internet to consumers. Following closely to the Singapore High Court in Chwee Kin Keong & Others v Digilandmall.com Pte Ltd [2004] 2 SLR 594 as a precedent with similar context, the court would most likely try to determine if there is an existence of a contract or if an agreement has been reached in the first place, so we refer to Lord Phillips in Shogun Finance Ltd v When, however, the cases provoked by these factual situations are analysed, they will be seen to fall, not into three, but only two distinct legal categories.
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