V K Rajah JC. 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. In Associated Japanese Bank (International) Ltd v Credit du NordSA [1989] 1 WLR 255 at 266, Lord DenningMRs views were doubted and described as reflecting an individual opinion by SteynJ (as he then was). The law of mistake has generated its own genre of mistakes and obfuscation. This has clearly caused much confusion in the common law jurisdictions. 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. At 4.16am he placed another order for one laser printer, by credit card, on the HP website. In the context of its true market value the absurd price of $66 was almost the commercial equivalent of virtually giving away the laser printers. The second, third, fourth and sixth plaintiffs are the only individuals who ordered more than a hundred laser printers each. 13 The first plaintiff, Chwee Kin Keong, is 29 years old. The following excerpts are particularly relevant: Desmond: 13/01/20 01:17 go hp online now. Claiming he was in a light-hearted kind of mood during his ICQ (acronym for I-Seek-You) conversation with Desmond, he insisted that this conversation should be taken neither seriously nor literally. 148 The circumstances under which the orders were placed and the quantities sought to be purchased wholly undermine counsels variegated contentions that the plaintiffs lacked knowledge of or belief in the existence of a mistake. The fact that it may have been negligent is not a relevant factor in these proceedings. If stock of a product has been exhausted, a prospective purchaser cannot sue for specific performance or damages as he has merely made an offer that has not been accepted by the merchant. 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]. Take a look at some weird laws from around the world! Digilandmall.com Pte Ltd [2004] 2 SLR(R) 594, Rajah JC (as . This final mass e-mail only reinforces my view that the first plaintiff consistently and continuously entertained the view that the price posting on the HP website was a mistake. 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 Often the essence of good business is the use of superior knowledge. I have carefully considered the issue of costs and have noted that the defendant had, in the process of mounting a root and branch attack on the plaintiffs claim, pursued some unmeritorious contentions. 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. He then zealously sent at about 2.58am, an e-mail to 54 persons, all of whom were friends and/or business associates. 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. Thus, while the idea of snapping up may well apply in cases one side is aware of the other sides error, I do not think it can be applied literally in the constructive knowledge cases. 79 The second, third and fifth plaintiffs tried their best to distance themselves from the quotes attributed to them. He is also described as the sole proprietor and manager of two other businesses that provide business support and consultancy. There was no element of surprise or prejudice to the plaintiffs as the points raised had already been developed by the defendant and addressed by the plaintiffs. This is much closer to the truth than the picture he has tried to paint in these proceedings. After the defendant intimated that it would not be delivering the laser printer, he sent an e-mail excoriating it, asserting, I felt that I had done all that was conceivably within my means to ensure that the Price was. In the recent case of Chwee Kin Keong and others v Digilandmall.com Pte Ltd (2005), the Singapore Courts were provided with an opportunity to revisit the law concerning mistakes made in the formation of a contract, in particular, in the context of online contracts. 66 The fifth plaintiff also gave evidence that the next morning, when he logged on his computer, he noted that a Hong Kong lawyer friend, Coral Toh, was also logged onto her computer. 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. The affidavits did not add anything new. This thread helps to rationalise the development of the common law but ought not to be viewed as supporting the existence of a general test of commercial morality tantamount to the test of unconscionability invoked by equity. It can be noted, however, that while s15 of the ETA appears to be inclined in favour of the receipt rule, commentaries indicate that it is not intended to affect substantive law. Rules and case law pertaining to amendments are premised upon achieving even-handedness in the context of an adversarial system by: (a) ensuring that the parties apprise each other and the court of the essential facts that they intend to rely on in addressing the issues in controversy or dispute; (b) requiring that an amendment should be attended to in the usual course of events, at an early stage of the proceedings, to ensure that no surprise or prejudice is inflicted on or caused to opposing parties; (c) requiring careful consideration whether any amendments sought at a late stage of the proceedings will cause any prejudice to the opposing party. Clout issue 43. When pressed as to whether he visited other websites, he said he could not confirm that one way or the other. . After placing his second order, he admitted making further searches on the Internet to fortify my view that the price of the $66 per printer was not a mistake He was also the only plaintiff who placed an order on the Digilandmall website. The case went before both the High Court and the Court of Appeal. 2. SingletonJ held at 568: The offer was wrongly expressed, and the defendants by their evidence, and by the correspondence, have satisfied me that the plaintiff could not reasonably have supposed that that offer contained the offerers real intention. If he was prepared to commit this view in writing to a larger circle of 54 friends and business associates after his communication with the second and third plaintiffs, he would certainly have shared this view with his close friends with even greater candour and detail. This is clearly a mistake as they could not possible be sold for an amount that in a commercial situation. Chwee Kin Keong and Others v Digilandmall.com Pte Ltd, Whether amendment of particulars of pleadings at conclusion of submissions allowed, Facts raised in proposed amendments addressed during trial and submissions, Whether promise by buyer to pay for goods, in exchange for delivery of goods, constituted sufficient consideration, Electronic Transactions Act (Cap 88, 1999 Rev Ed), Whether automated e-mail responses from seller amounted to acceptance of buyer's offer, Seller's unilateral mistake as to price of goods posted on website, Whether online buyer entitled to enforce contract against seller, 3 All six plaintiffs are graduates, conversant with the usage of the Internet and its practices and endowed with more than an adequate understanding of business and commercial practices. Registered office: Creative Tower, Fujairah, PO Box 4422, UAE. It is, in large measure, determined by making an objective appraisal of the exchanges between the parties. 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. In the final analysis, it would appear that the likely existence of an internal error in pricing was clearly within his contemplation. The Canadian and Australian cases have moved along with the eddies of unconscionability. Is this a case of poetic justice? It takes the view that there is no jurisdiction in equity to rescind a contract that is valid at common law, on the basis of mistake. 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. 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. Upon completing this sequence, each of the orders placed by the plaintiffs was confirmed by automated responses from the respective websites stating Successful Purchase Confirmation from HP online. 1.47K subscribers Chwee Kin Keong v Digilandmall.com Pte Ltd [2005] Facts The defendant, Digilandmall.com Pte Ltd, were an online IT company that sold related software and hardware from. 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 He is also a director and shareholder in a company engaging in wholesale trade, together with the second and third plaintiffs. 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. This contention is wholly untenable. 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. The second plaintiff made an enquiry as to the terms and conditions governing purchases through the HP website while the fifth plaintiff was perusing the conditions of the Digilandmall website. . This may be too high a price to pay in this area of the law. June Proctor, 1997, p. 13. The programme trigger on that website automatically and instantaneously initiated the insertion of similar contents onto all three websites. This cannot be right. It is asserted that since mistake had not been pleaded as an equitable defence, equity cannot be invoked by the defendant. This judgment text has undergone conversion so that it is mobile and web-friendly. 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. This new template was designed to facilitate instantaneous price changes allowing them to be simultaneously reflected in the relevant Internet web pages. 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. 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. Despite the general views expressed in. The unconstrained exchange that followed between the two is both revealing and compelling. Certainty in commercial transactions should not be trifled with, as this will inevitably affect how commercial and business exchanges are respected and effected. There was a promise to pay made by the plaintiffs in exchange for the delivery of the requisite laser printers. Web merchants ought to ensure that they either contract out of the receipt rule or expressly insert salient terms within the contract to deal with issues such as a choice of law, jurisdiction and other essential terms relating to the passing of risk and payment. It has been pointed out that the pedigree of these decisions is dubious, to say the least (see [128] and [129] infra). The product descriptions in all the other pages of the respective websites, at the material time, carried a full detailed description of all advertised products. Given that he left everything in the third plaintiffs hands, his legal position is, to that extent, identical to the third plaintiffs. They even discussed the possible scenario of the defendant not honouring the transactions. 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. They then argue that as equitable defences have not been pleaded, the court has no alternative but to allow the claim. 12 The plaintiffs both collectively and individually maintained adamantly that while they thought that the price of $66 appeared to be a good deal they did not think that the website prices had been mistakenly placed or inserted. There is constant tension in our legal system to accommodate the Janus-like considerations of fairness and finality. Entores Ltd v Miles Far East Corp. [1955] 2 Q.B. 2 Who is correct? 81 Plaintiffs counsel thereafter responded somewhat curiously. This assertion is patently untrue. To export a reference to this article please select a referencing stye below: This selection of essays, case summaries and dissertations is of relevance to law students within the Commonwealth and for those students who are studying the Rule of Law from outside the Commonwealth . I even went to both the HP Web-Site as well as the DigilandMall Web-site to see if the prices were the same. be rebutted" (per Salmon LJ in Jones v. Padavatton (1969)). Chwee Kin Keong v Digilandmall.com Pte Ltd Case No.s Suit 202/2003/E (for the first instance), CA/30/2004 (for the appeal) Name and level of courts High Court of Singapore(at first instance), Singapore Court of Appeal Member of courts VK Rajah, JC (for the first instance), Chao Hick Tin JA, Kan Ting Chiu J, Yong Pung How CJ The phrase call to enquire, it is contended, was in effect a condition precedent. If this rule applies to international sales, is it sensible to have a different rule for domestic sales? Article24 of the Convention states: For the purposes of this Part of the Convention, an offer, declaration of acceptance or any other indication of intention reaches the addressee when it is made orally to him or delivered by any other means to him personally, to his place of business or mailing address or, if he does not have a place of business or mailing address, to his habitual residence. Ltd. has the makings of a student's classic for several reasons, including: 1. Normally the contract is only concluded when the acceptance is communicated by the offeree to the offeror. In the High Court, the learned judge ("the Judge") decided, in the main, in favour of the Purchaser. Unilateral Mistake at . I do not accept that there were no discussions between them on the price posting being an error. 1 In the early hours of the morning of 13January 2003, six friends, the plaintiffs in this case, placed orders over the Internet for 1,606 sophisticated Hewlett Packard commercial laser printers (the laser printer(s)). VKR a j a hJ C. 27-30 January; 2-6, 9 February; 13 March; 12 April 2004. Having expressed my views on consideration, I should also add for good measure that, in any event, there is ample consideration. 130 It can be persuasively argued that given (a)the historical pedigree of the cases, (b)the dictates of certainty and predictability in the business community and (c)the general acceptance of the existence of distinct common law rules, it is preferable not to conflate these concepts. 119 It is apparent from this overview that the Canadian courts have integrated through their equitable jurisdiction the concept of common law mistake within the rubric of unconscionability. 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. Phang, Controversy in Common Mistake [2003] Conv 247; Reynolds, Reconsider the Contract Textbooks (2003) 119LQR 177. In a Straits Times report dated 15January 2003 captioned $66 printer error angry customers seek lawyers help, it was reported that the second plaintiff, described as a network marketer had on 13January at about 2.00am stumbled upon a offer he could not believe $66 for a Hewlett Packard laserjet printer that normally sells for $3,854 before GST. MrTan said: As long as we get out [sic] equitable compensation, we should be able to accept lesser terms, but thats just under consideration as well.. Basic principles of contract law continue to prevail in contracts made on the Internet. This was borne out by the case of Chwee Kin Keong and Others v. Digilandmall.com Pte Ltd [2004] SGHC 71 where an autogenerated email with "Successful Purchase Confirmation" in its subject . 70 The third plaintiff proceeded to place orders on behalf of the sixth plaintiff on the HP website. 97 Different rules may apply to e-mail transactions and worldwide web transactions. 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. Scorpio: 13/01/20 01:24 huh?? This is in contrast to the English position where after several decades, 125 The principal source of this view has been Lord DenningMR. The recipients of this e-mail included the second, fourth, fifth plaintiffs and Tan Cheng Peng, the third plaintiffs girlfriend. The first issue dealt with references made by the plaintiffs to certain embargoed material. 151 The claims by the plaintiffs are audacious, opportunistic and contrived. He was also involved in initiating the Channel NewsAsia report (see [78] and [79] infra). It is not in dispute that the defendant made a genuine error. The purpose of the amendments was merely to regularise the pleadings and indeed they went no further than to summarise evidence and submissions that had already been raised. The case involved the sale of printers by the defendant at a price of S$66. Scorpio: 13/01/20 01:33 as many as I can! They are not mechanical rules to be applied in a vacuum, devoid of a contextual setting. In fact, he and the fourth plaintiff have jointly conceptualised and implemented an Internet-related business. Alternatively, knowledge may be readily inferred from what would be regarded as commonly known or notorious facts in the context of the transaction. Nor could he satisfactorily explain why he initially made the Internet searches to ensure the offer was genuine. In this case, Defendant was selling IT products over internet in Singapore. In light of this, the parties did not address me on the issue of when the contract was formed, though this appears to be a relevant issue depending on which rule is adopted. 126 The Australian courts appear to have relied on the views of Lord DenningMR in Solle v Butcher to establish a wholly different doctrinal approach to mistake and have purportedly applied a fused concept of law and equity to the law on mistake. This is not a case about bargain hunting which is a time honoured and perfectly legitimate pursuit. There can be no other reasonable explanation. in the High Court decision of Chwee Kin Keong v Digilandmall.com Pte Ltd,2 from the perspective of economics. hahaha means S$132, Desmond 13/01/20 01:43 even $500 is a steal. Before dealing with the point of real substance, it is appropriate to briefly deal with two of the less meritorious contentions advanced. He commenced practice in 2000 and currently practices with the law firm representing the plaintiffs in this action. David Baxter Edward Thomas and Peter Sandford Gander v BPE Solicitors (a firm) [2010] EWHC 306 (Ch) Dunlop v Higgins (1848) 1 HLC 381. The reason for this inconsistent conduct surfaced later. The essence is not so much in the nature of the amendment but rather in the consequences flowing from any amendment to the pleadings. They are tainted and unenforceable. The law of agency and that pertaining to the formation of contracts are expressly recognised in s13(8) of the ETA as continuing to apply to electronic transactions. 47 Not content with making his own purchases, he woke up his brother and transacted 330 units on his behalf. Desmond: 13/01/20 01:25 I think one of the wrong posted price, Scorpio: 13/01/20 01:25 damn dont tell me they realised their error already, Scorpio: 13/01/20 01:32 shiok can make a quick profit by selling them cheap shd buy more. 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. 107 As the law now stands, mistakes that are not fundamental or which do not relate to an essential term do not vitiate consent. 90 After leave was granted to amend the defence, each of the plaintiffs filed a further short affidavit refuting knowledge of the mistake relating to pricing. 53 He claimed that seeing the same price on the Digilandmall website confirmed his view that there had been no mistake. 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. Chwee Kin Keong v Digilandmall.com Pte Ltd [2004] 2 SLR 594; [2004] SGHC 71. These orders were placed at a price of S$66 each, whereas the actual price was S$3,854 each. 327. 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. Counsels approach is flawed. 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?? Be that as it may, the fifth plaintiff, soon after he received MsTohs research, shared the information with the second and third plaintiffs. 80 Upon the conclusion of submissions, I directed counsel to appear before me. The amounts ordered and the hurried and hasty manner in which the orders were executed are of cardinal importance. 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. 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. One of the few cases on electronic contract formation in Singapore was Chwee Kin Keong v Digilandmall. Such conduct is akin to that of an unscrupulous commercial predator seeking to take advantage of an error by an unsuspecting prey by pouncing upon it before the latter has an opportunity to react or raise a shield of defence.
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