I granted leave to both parties to file applications to amend the pleadings. Why? In terms of chronological sequence, the initial page accessed was the shopping cart, followed by checkout-order particulars, checkout-order confirmation, check-out payment details and payment whether by cash on delivery or by credit card. In short, where does the justice reside? 27-30 January; 2-6, 9 February; 13 March; 12 April 2004 . The other knows, or must be taken to know, of his mistake. Being fully conscious of the pivotal nature of this point, I have duly accorded particular attention to the evidence and credibility of each of the plaintiffs. There cannot be any legitimate expectation of enforcement on the part of the non-mistaken party seeking to take advantage of appearances. Chwee Kin Keong v Digilandmall.com Pte Ltd [2005] - YouTube 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. Promotions would be indicated by a P inside a yellow circle next to the product in question. 88 The fact that the amending party has been tardy or even negligent is a factor that a court can (and in some egregious cases, should) take into account but this is by no means a decisive factor (cf Ketteman v Hansel Properties). 58 The fifth plaintiff was first informed by the second plaintiff at about 2.30am about cheap laser printers being available for purchase. At 4.15am, he sent an email to the first plaintiff, copied to the second plaintiff, with a happy emoticon following check out the prices here (see [19]. It is plain that the defendant had given careful consideration to this issue and was prepared to contract on the basis that it would be able to comply with any orders hence, there was no reference to any order being subject to stock availability. 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. com Pte Ltd30 that was primarily about unilateral mistake. 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. While the first plaintiff was the source of the information concerning the price posting, the second plaintiff actively communicated with all of the plaintiffs (save the sixth plaintiff), throughout the material period. I am not prepared, after full consideration, to assume that the reporters misquoted the facts. Their They were selling a HP laser printer and an employee accidently made a mistake as to the price of the printer on their website. 53 He claimed that seeing the same price on the Digilandmall website confirmed his view that there had been no mistake. Chwee Kin Keong v Digilandmall.com Pte Ltd,( [2005]SGCA 2 ) . Chwee Kin Keong and others v Digilandmall.com Pte Ltd [2005] 1 SLR(R) 502; [2005] SGCA 2. 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. Chwee KIN Keong AND Others v Digilandmall.COM PTE LTD [2004 ] SGHC 71 paginator.book page 594 tuesday, november 2009 7:05 am 594 singapore law reports (reissue . The knowledge that the offer is not meant according to its literal terms simply displaces the objective theory of contract. 33 See the Singapore Court of Appeal decision of Chwee Kin Keong v Digilandmall.com Pte Ltd[2005] 1 SLR 502 (noted by Yeo, TM ' Great Peace: a distant disturbance ' (2005) 121 Law Quarterly Review 393 Google Scholar; KFK Low 'Unilateral mistake at common law and in equity' [2005] Lloyd's Maritime and Commercial Law Quarterly 423; and PW . The web merchant, unless he qualifies his offer appropriately, by making it subject to the availability of stock or some other condition precedent, could be seen as making an offer to sell an infinite supply of goods. chwee kin keong v digilandmall high court. 7191 RSS High Court Expand/Collapse. It is pertinent to note that she placed orders for 32 laser printers including 20 units she ordered on behalf of her sister. All previous discussions and negotiations between the parties proceeded on the basis of the price being fixed at so much per piece. The reason for this inconsistent conduct surfaced later. Scorpio: 13/01/20 01:17 what hp online?? The fourth plaintiff duly accessed the e-mail the second plaintiff had sent him pursuant to their conversation. Take a look at some weird laws from around the world! It appears that it wanted to leave no stone unturned and had therefore mounted a root and branch attack on the plaintiffs claims. The essence of unilateral mistake is the knowledge or deemed knowledge of a mistake and though fraud may often be present it is not an essential ingredient. There must be consensus ad idem. COOKE v OXLEY (1790) 3 T. R. 653. 35 In addition to these conversations, the second plaintiff also accessed the Epinions website and sent a related e-mail to the first plaintiff. (See for example the approach in, 142 The plaintiffs were bound by personal relationships as well as past and present common commercial interests. The contract was held to be void because there was no consensus on the terms. 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. Singapore Comparative Law Review 2019 (SCLR 2019) - Issuu The recipient rule appears to be the logical default rule. Chwee Kin Keong Vs | PDF - Scribd Normally the contract is only concluded when the acceptance is communicated by the offeree to the offeror. 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. It is not necessary to prove actual knowledge on the part of the non-mistaken party in order to ground relief, as in this context one is taken to have known what would have been obvious to a reasonable person in the light of the surrounding circumstances: Hartog v Colin and Shields [1939] AllER 566 (KBD); McMaster University; Stepps Investments, supra; Taylor, supra. One circumstance falling clearly within the equitable jurisdiction of the Court to relieve against mistake is that where one party, knowing of the others mistake as to the terms of an offer, remains silent and concludes a contract on the mistaken terms: It is not necessary to prove actual knowledge on the part of the non-mistaken party in order to ground relief, as, In summary therefore, the equitable jurisdiction of the Courts to relieve against mistake in contract comprehends situations where one party, who knows or ought to know of anothers mistake in a fundamental term, remains silent and snaps at the offer, seeking to take advantage of the others mistake. 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. Put another way, that decision seems to indicate that the effect of a unilateral mistake is only to render a contract unenforceable rather than void. The common law has drawn the line in Bell v Lever Bros Ltd. Free resources to assist you with your legal studies! If an offeree understands an offer in accordance with its natural meaning and accepts it, the offeror cannot be heard to say that he intended the words of his offer to have a different meaning. There is no doubt that the plaintiffs acted with indecent haste in the dead of the night in placing as many orders as each of them felt their financial resources credibly permitted them to do. 79 The second, third and fifth plaintiffs tried their best to distance themselves from the quotes attributed to them. 30th Sep 2021 He was also involved in initiating the Channel NewsAsia report (see [78] and [79], 77 Soon after the defendant informed the plaintiffs that they did not intend to deliver the laser printers, the plaintiffs took their claims to the press. Certainly, none of them had ever been induced to conduct transactions on such a scale on the Internet for any product, let alone sophisticated commercial laser printers. The court found that parties when . Daniel was previously a partner and head of the technology practice at Messrs Rajah & Tann. [emphasis added]. be rebutted" (per Salmon LJ in Jones v. Padavatton (1969)). This is to be contrasted with: Hare, Inequitable Mistake (2003) 62CLJ 29, Chandler et al, Common Mistake: Theoretical Justification and Remedial Inflexibility [2004] JBL 34. The Vienna Sales Convention (the Convention) applies in Singapore as a consequence of the Sale of Goods (United Nations Convention) Act (Cap283A, 1996Rev Ed). 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. 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 . 26 It is clear from the priority status accorded to the e-mail that the first plaintiff was sharing his knowledge of a good deal. As part of its business, it operates a website owned by Hewlett Packard (HP) at, 16 When the first plaintiff eventually succeeded in accessing the HP website, he immediately placed an order for 100 laser printers at about, 17 Having called the second and third plaintiffs at about. Desmond: 13/01/20 01:43 coz the HP laser colour printer sells for at least 3 to 4k outside, Desmond 13/01/20 01:44 from US I heard is about USD 2k, Desmond 13/01/20 01:44 its HP and Laser and Coloured. A real product number HP9660A was inserted in the new template as the prototype for which fictional prices were to be changed on the three relevant websites. The rationale for this is that a court will not sanction a contract where there is no consensus ad idem and furthermore it will not allow, as in the case of unilateral mistake, a non-mistaken party to take advantage of an error which he is or ought to be conscious of. Chwee Kin Keong v Digilandmall.com Pte Ltd. Case Nos: Suit 202/2003/E (for the first instance), CA/30/2004 (for the appeal) in the High Court of Singapore (at first instance), Singapore Court of Appeal. If the defendant were right, they maintain, uncertainty would prevail in the commercial world and more particularly in Internet transactions. He conducted the searches to ascertain what the laser printers true price was. Just as the Law Reform (Frustrated Contracts) Act 1943 was needed to temper the effect of the common law doctrine of frustration, so there is scope for legislation to give greater flexibility to our law of mistake than the common law allows. 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 on what companies who had made similar Internet errors did. He admitted in cross-examination to being the lawyer for this group of people when they had questions like these in the present proceedings. 85 Having stated the general rule, it is imperative that the rationale underlying this approach be understood. [2005] SGCA 2 - eLitigation 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. 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. This is without basis. Adopting an objective standard, executory contracts have in fact been entered into and concluded between the parties. Loose language may result in inadvertently establishing contractual liability to a much wider range of purchasers than resources permit. Given his professional and business background, he must have realised that the $66 price posting on the HP website was an error. Rather, in my opinion, constructive knowledge alone will suffice to invoke equitys conscience. 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. 43 After receiving a call from the first plaintiff at about 2.00am informing him that he had found an opportunity to make money as there was an arbitrage position to be achieved for some Hewlett Packard printers, the third plaintiff duly accessed his e-mail and visited the HP website. 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]): In summary therefore, the equitable jurisdiction of the Courts to relieve against mistake in contract comprehends situations where one party, who knows or ought to know of anothers mistake in a fundamental term, remains silent and snaps at the offer, seeking to take advantage of the others mistake. To confine this exception to instances of fraud would make the concept of unilateral mistake redundant. Looking for a flexible role? Chwee Kin Keong v. Digilandmall.com Pte. The first plaintiffs riposte, should such a situation come to pass, was to sue them lor. This may be too high a price to pay in this area of the law. Keywords Contract Online Store Mistake Pricing Mistake Citation The plaintiffs also assert in their submissions that if contracts are only upheld if parties acted honourably there would be very few contracts left standing in the commercial world. Her evidence was inconsequential and did not assist the plaintiffs. Chwee Kin Keong vs Digilandmall.com - Free download as Powerpoint Presentation (.ppt / .pptx), PDF File (.pdf), Text File (.txt) or view presentation slides online. But it is difficult to see how that can apply here. . Caveat emptor remains a cornerstone of the law of contract and business relationships. After all, what would he do with 100 obsolete commercial laser printers? I must add that these were far from being ordinary printers for home use. Contract Formation and Mistake in Cyberspace - the Singapore Experience It is not in dispute that the defendant made a genuine error. He is currently a supervisor in the taxation department of an international accounting firm, Deloitte & Touche, specialising in corporate taxation services. Indeed, upon re-examination, he attempted to distance himself from the portion of his affidavit suggesting that the possibility of a genuine mistake had crossed his mind after the first transaction.
Boz Scaggs Tour Band Members,
Northampton Incident Today,
Todd Friel Seminary,
Invested Cash And Equipment Journal Entry,
Articles C
chwee kin keong v digilandmall high court