It is asserted that since mistake had not been pleaded as an equitable defence, equity cannot be invoked by the defendant. 35 In addition to these conversations, the second plaintiff also accessed the Epinions website and sent a related e-mail to the first plaintiff. He is also part of the Bel-Air network. I cannot accept that. 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. It argues that the decision is both fair and economically grounded, and proposes an alternative view to that offered by classical contract law - one that sees fairness intertwined 100 There is however another statute that ought to be taken into consideration in determining the appropriate default rule in e-commerce transactions. 27 The first plaintiff obviously took the view that the advertisement should be acted upon urgently. He placed his first order for 50 units at about 2.58am, and his second order for another 50 units at 3.22am, again through the HP website. To my mind, the confirmation through the subsequent searches that the actual price of the laser printer was, in fact, US$2,000 would, if anything, have affirmed his belief that an error had occurred. When considering the appropriate rule to apply, it stands to reason that as between sender and receiver, the party who selects the means of communication should bear the consequences of any unexpected events. He received this information through an sms message. When pressed why he asked MsToh to do this research, the fifth plaintiffs response was unsatisfactory. In Canada, the latter suffices. 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. 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. The number of orders he placed was nothing short of brazen. The defendant programmed the software. 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. Document Citado por Relacionados. Desmond: 13/01/20 01:40 if any friend got extra printer u want? 57 Malcolm Tan is 30 years old and a practising advocate and solicitor. He is also described as the sole proprietor and manager of two other businesses that provide business support and consultancy. The issue could be critical where third party rights are in issue as in. Is this a case of poetic justice? The issue could be critical where third party rights are in issue as in Shogun. They were high-end commercial laser printers. 69 The sixth plaintiff was awakened by his brother, the third plaintiff, at about 3.00am. 137 Furthermore, from the evidence adduced, it became clear that the defendant had intentionally put the words call to enquire instead of, say, the phrase subject to stock availability in an attempt to entice would-be purchasers to place orders with them. If anything, certain portions of the affidavits raised even more doubts about the plaintiffs credibility. With reference to the judgement, the case explores pricing mistakes by online stores. That said, it also offers new avenues of evidential proof offering intimate insights into realtime thought processes and reactions. 48 The third plaintiff annexed to his affidavit the transcript of the Channel NewsAsia report where he was quoted. After hearing their evidence, observing them and considering the submissions made on their behalf, there was no doubt in my mind that they were fully conscious that an unfortunate and egregious mistake had indeed been made by the defendant. It presents a textbook example of offer and acceptance. Desmond: 13/01/20 01:47 u make me greedy, Scorpio: 13/01/20 01:47 ok lor if you insist . In New Zealand, the legislature enacted the Contractual Mistake Act 1977. 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. V K Rajah JC: Para continuar leyendo. The defendant is therefore entitled to recover in full its taxed costs from the plaintiffs. 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.. They were selling a HP laser printer and an employee accidently made a mistake as to the price of the printer on their website.. Cases 53 He claimed that seeing the same price on the Digilandmall website confirmed his view that there had been no mistake. In fact, he and the fourth plaintiff have jointly conceptualised and implemented an Internet-related business. Before retiring for the night, the first plaintiff had a further discussion with the second plaintiff on how to store the laser printers they had ordered. They were selling a HP laser printer and an employee accidently made a mistake as to the price of the printer on their website. 18 He said he later conducted some searches using the Google search engine and ascertained that the laser printer could be sold at about US$1,300 in certain markets. 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. At 4.16am he placed another order for one laser printer, by credit card, on the HP website. 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. There can be no other reasonable explanation. I was neither impressed nor convinced. 156 The plaintiffs claims are dismissed. 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. A typical but not essential defining characteristic of conduct of this nature is the haste or urgency with which the non-mistaken party seeks to conclude a contract; the haste is induced by a latent anxiety that the mistaken party may learn of the error and as a result correct the error or change its mind about entering into the contract. Rajah J.C. in the Singapore High Court in Chwee Kin Keong v. Digilandmall.com Pte. The answer on the authorities is a mistake by one party of which the other, 111 This approach appears to have been endorsed by Judith PrakashJ in, 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, 115 There is a distinct line of cases within the narrow confines of unilateral mistake where the common law has been resolutely disinclined to enforce apparent contracts. The plaintiffs are, however, entitled to the cost of the amendments, in any event, which I fix at $1,000. 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. Cases of fraud and misrepresentation, and undue influence, are all catered for under other existing and uncontentious equitable rules. . The question is what is capable of displacing that apparent agreement. A court is not likely to take a sympathetic view of such manner of amendment. FEATURE - Law Gazette Has an agreement been reached or not? He claims he then accessed the US HP website either through a Google web search engine or by abbreviating the url of the HP website. - This is also the position as regards friends: see Coward v. MIB (1963). 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. The case of, The offer was wrongly expressed, and the defendants by their evidence, and by the correspondence, have satisfied me that the plaintiff, 116 The term snapping up was aptly coined by JamesLJ in, 117 It should be emphasised that this stream of authority is consistently recognised by all the major common law jurisdictions. 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. Where either mutual or unilateral mistake is pleaded, the very existence of agreement is denied. This is in contrast to the English position where after several decades, 125 The principal source of this view has been Lord DenningMR. 40 When the fourth plaintiff responded to the first plaintiffs mass e-mail, he copied his response to the second plaintiff. The payment mode opted for was cash on delivery. Registered office: Creative Tower, Fujairah, PO Box 4422, UAE. The defendants argued this pricing was a unilateral mistake and that the complainants took advantage of this. The notation in the checkout-order confirmation further confirmed that the defendants concern was with the delivery time rather than with qualifying its obligation by reference to stock availability as a condition precedent. It is simply inconceivable that when he entered into the purchase transaction, he did not know, or at the very least did not have a real and abiding belief that the price posting was an error. 111 This approach appears to have been endorsed by Judith PrakashJ in Ho Seng Lee Construction Pte Ltd v Nian Chuan Construction Pte Ltd [2001] 4 SLR 407 at [84] where it was also accepted that: The test is an objective one based on what a reasonable person would have known in similar circumstances. This contention is wholly untenable. I categorically reject their evidence in so far as it attempts to hermetically compartmentalise their knowledge and discussions. On the issue of his actual knowledge and communications with the other plaintiffs at the material time, I found his evidence unsatisfactory. NZULR, vol. The evidence incontrovertibly indicates that the first plaintiff himself entertained this view for the entire period he was in communication with the second and third plaintiffs. Because it was simply a matter of time before the error would inevitably be noticed and the pricing inevitably corrected. Quoine Pte Ltd v B2C2 Ltd: A Commentary - SSRN Before dealing with the point of real substance, it is appropriate to briefly deal with two of the less meritorious contentions advanced. It had consciously not inserted any limits to the number of products a buyer could purchase again, quite clearly, to solicit more business. They were clearly anxious to place their orders before the defendant took steps to correct the error. The transcript states that the third and the fifth plaintiffs saw a great opportunity and grabbed it. Chwee Kin Keong and others v. Digilandmall.com Pte Ltd. [2004 - vLex 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. *You can also browse our support articles here >. Indeed, the time may have come for the common law to shed the pretence of searching for consideration to uphold commercial contracts. Online Pricing Mistakes | Emerald Insight Philip Fong Yeng Fatt and Doris Chia Ming Lai (Harry Elias Partnership) for defendant, Chwee Kin Keong; Tan Wei Teck; Yeow Kinn Keong Mark; Ow Eng Hwee; Tan Chun Chuen Malcolm; Yeow Kinn Oei I am not prepared, after full consideration, to assume that the reporters misquoted the facts. The High Court of Australia in Taylor v Johnson purportedly relied on Solle v Butcher, Bell v Lever Brothers, Limited [1932] AC 161, McRae v Commonwealth Disposals Commission (1951) 84CLR 377, all cases of common mistake, to suggest that in unilateral mistake a contracting party cannot assert, by relying on his own mistake, that a contract is void, notwithstanding the issue is fundamental or known to the other side. 75 Each of the automated confirmatory e-mail responses carried under Availability of product the notation call to enquire. Abstract. They have taken into account both the English and Australian authorities in distilling the jurisprudence in this area. 145 If the price of a product is so absurdly low in relation to its known market value, it stands to reason that a reasonable man would harbour a real suspicion that the price may not be correct or that there may be some troubling underlying basis for such a pricing. 327. The element of constructive knowledge based upon what a reasonable person ought to know is premised upon that person not being conscious of the error. This e-mail was sent only after the first plaintiff had made his own Internet searches on the pricing of the laser printer. com Pte Ltd30 that was primarily about unilateral mistake. The leading Canadian decision in this area is the case of, 120 The widening of jurisdiction to embrace a broad equitable jurisdiction could well encourage litigious behaviour and promote uncertainty. 41 The second plaintiff seems to have redefined the facts to achieve his objective in these proceedings. It has been pointed out that the pedigree of these decisions is dubious, to say the least (see [128] and [129] infra). 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. The contract stands according to the natural meaning of the words used. There could be different considerations. 146 A purchaser in a case of apparent unilateral mistake, who purchases for genuine own use a product, may not always be viewed as guilty of engaging in snapping up. They want Digiland to honour the deal or at least to compensate them. In doing so, they appear to have also conflated equitable and common law concepts. 2 [2004] 2 SLR 594 ("the Digilandmall case") (The decision was very recently affirmed by the Singapore Court of Appeal in Chwee Kin Keong v Digilandmall.com Pte Ltd [2005] SGCA 2, albeit on somewhat different grounds and where the focus was on the law of unilateral mistake rather than formation of contract.)]. The Canadian and Australian cases have moved along with the eddies of unconscionability. 16 When the first plaintiff eventually succeeded in accessing the HP website, he immediately placed an order for 100 laser printers at about 2.05am, charging the transaction to his credit card. 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. In Chwee Kin Keong v. Digilandmall.com Pte Ltd, 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. Though he initially denied this in cross-examination, he had to accept this when confronted with his own e-mail as irrefutable evidence. I note that there have been powerful arguments made to the contrary. [2005] 1 SLR(R) 0502 Chwee Kin Keong and others v Digilandmall.com Pte Case Note: Singapore | Digital Evidence and Electronic Signature Law Review 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. June Proctor, 1997, p. 13. 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. 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. 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. The relevant text reads: WHILE surfing the Net at about 2am on Monday, MrTan Wei Teck stumbled upon an offer he could not believe $66 for a Hewlett Packard laserjet printer that normally sells for $3,854 before GST. 101 The applicable rules in relation to transactions over the worldwide web appear to be clearer and less controversial. 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 . Mutual promises, by all accounts, on the basis of existing case law, more than amply constitute consideration. Unfortunately, they mistakenly offered the price at so much per pound in place of so much per piece. 74 Under product description on each webpage, instead of the actual description of the laser printer which in this case should have been HP9660A Color LaserJet 4600, only the numerals 55 appeared: this was the result of Samuel Teos earlier inadvertent input. To assert that as a rule, leave to amend particulars will be refused, is both illogical and incorrect. Having ascertained that the laser printer was being advertised at $66, he decided to undertake further online searches through Yahoo.com and Ebay.com. The modern approach in contract law requires very little to find the existence of consideration. This constituted more than a quarter of the total number of laser printers ordered. Rajah J.C. in the Singapore High Court in Chwee Kin Keong v. Digilandmall.com Pte. The Postal Acceptance Rule in the Digital Age - ResearchGate Amendments after conclusion of submissions. 120 The widening of jurisdiction to embrace a broad equitable jurisdiction could well encourage litigious behaviour and promote uncertainty. In such cases, where the purchaser has readily accessible means from the very same computer screen, to ascertain through a simple search whether a mistake has taken place, the onus could be upon him to exonerate himself of imputed knowledge of the mistake. 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. I hope by the time you see this email, the price is still at S$66.00 coz they might change it anytime. 95 The known availability of stock could be an important distinguishing factor between a physical sale and an Internet transaction. If the offeree knows that the offeror does not intend the terms of the offer to be those that the natural meaning of the words would suggest, he cannot, by purporting to accept the offer, bind the offeror to a contract: Hartog v Colin & Shields [1939] 3All ER 566; Smith v Hughes (1871) LR6 QB 597. 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. (See for example the approach in, 142 The plaintiffs were bound by personal relationships as well as past and present common commercial interests. They then argue that as equitable defences have not been pleaded, the court has no alternative but to allow the claim. He conducted the searches to ascertain what the laser printers true price was. The amounts ordered and the hurried and hasty manner in which the orders were executed are of cardinal importance. As with any normal contract, Internet merchants have to be cautious how they present an advertisement, since this determines whether the advertisement will be construed as an invitation to treat or a unilateral contract. As most web merchants have automated software responses, they need to ensure that such automated responses correctly reflect their intentions from an objective perspective. Looking for a flexible role? He is currently employed as an accountant in an accounting firm, Ernst & Young. This is a disingenuous contention that desperately attempts to palliate their conduct in the subject transactions. He is 32 years old and conducts his own network marketing business. 49 Tan Cheng Pengs brief evidence did not really assist the third plaintiff. 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 there appears to be no reasonable explanation for an absurd price discrepancy, it is axiomatic that any hasty conduct, such as the plaintiffs, in snapping up products, should be punctiliously scrutinised and dissected. High Court Suit No 202 of 2003. Both parties expressed that they wished to effect amendments to mirror evidence that had been adduced in the proceedings. Chwee Kin Keong vs Digilandmall.com - Free download as Powerpoint Presentation (.ppt / .pptx), PDF File (.pdf), Text File (.txt) or view presentation slides online. 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. Notwithstanding occasional failure, most e-mails arrive sooner rather than later. The CISG has currently been adopted by 95 Contracting States world-wide. 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. He graduated from NTU as a bachelor of business studies, specialising in financial analysis. The fact that it may have been negligent is not a relevant factor in these proceedings. They are not mechanical rules to be applied in a vacuum, devoid of a contextual setting. The quintessential approach of the law is to preserve rather than to undermine contracts. A-Z of Cases | Carlil & Carbolic - Law Study Resources They are all well-educated professionals articulate, entrepreneurial and, quite bluntly, streetwise and savvy individuals. LOW, Kelvin Fatt Kin. Case Note: Singapore - CORE Yet in other aspects, he could recollect, with crystal clear precision and clarity, details of what had transpired. 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] supra). 151 The claims by the plaintiffs are audacious, opportunistic and contrived. In Chwee Kin Keong v . High Court and Court of Appeal, recently, in a number of case . The recipient rule is therefore more convenient and relevant in the context of both instantaneous or near instantaneous communications.