Speaker: Rian Matthews
Chair: Leslie Chew SC
The seminar was well-attended with over 50 participants. The speaker was Mr. Rian Matthews, a Local Principal from Baker & McKenzie.Wong & Leow and the session was chaired by Mr. Leslie Chew SC.
Mr. Matthews compared areas of interest in contract law in Singapore and England with reference to recent cases. The discussion covered the different approaches taken to areas such as contractual construction and damages.
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One interesting topic related to the applicability of the traditional two-limb Hadley v Baxendale test for remoteness of damages. The first limb of the test states that general damages arising from breach of contract are those which parties would have reasonably contemplated to flow naturally from that breach at the time they made the contract. The second limb states that where special circumstances have been communicated between the parties, damages may be awarded based on what parties ought to have contemplated would ordinarily flow from such circumstances. In the case of Transfield Shipping Inc v Mercator Shipping Inc (The Achilleas) [2008] UKHL 48, the House of Lords moved towards a new test premised on the assumption of responsibility rather than foreseeablility, stating that the question is “whether the loss was a type of loss for which the party can reasonably be assumed to have assumed responsibility”. However, in the case of Out of the Box Pte Ltd v Wanin Industries Pte Ltd [2013] SGCA 15, the Singapore Court of Appeal rejected the new test in The Achilleas and endorsed the traditional Hadley v Baxendale test.
At the end of the seminar, the audience was also invited to consider the effects which the different approaches have in practice, in particular, the ease with which the tests may be applied and whether the outcomes would have been different in each case.
In all, it was an extremely useful and informative session as the audience was provided with a broad and comprehensive overview of the different approaches in Singapore and England.
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Reported by:
CAI CHENYING - Senior Associate, Allen & Gledhill LLP