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Contact

Contact with chambers should be made through the Practice Management Team. They are happy to discuss client requirements and provide further information on such matters as the expertise and experience of individual members, fees, working practices and languages spoken. We have members able to work in French, German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Swedish, Greek and Chinese (Mandarin).

Outside working hours, a member of our team is always available to be contacted on matters of an urgent nature. Contact should be made using the Chambers main number or email.

For our Singapore office, for client enquiries please contact our Head of Business Development for Asia Pacific, Katie-Beth Jones, and for all other queries please contact Lynn Quek. Out of office hours calls will automatically be diverted to our practice management team in London.

London

20 Essex Street
London
WC2R 3AL

enquiries@twentyessex.com
t: +44 20 7842 1200

Singapore

28 Maxwell Road
#02-03 Maxwell Chambers Suites
Singapore 069120

singapore@twentyessex.com
t: +65 62257230

Contact

Contact with chambers should be made through the Practice Management Team. They are happy to discuss client requirements and provide further information on such matters as the expertise and experience of individual members, fees, working practices and languages spoken. We have members able to work in French, German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Swedish, Greek and Chinese (Mandarin).

Outside working hours, a member of our team is always available to be contacted on matters of an urgent nature. Contact should be made using the Chambers main number or email.

For our Singapore office, for client enquiries please contact our Head of Business Development for Asia Pacific, Katie-Beth Jones, and for all other queries please contact Lynn Quek. Out of office hours calls will automatically be diverted to our practice management team in London.

London

20 Essex Street
London
WC2R 3AL

enquiries@twentyessex.com
t: +44 20 7842 1200

Singapore

28 Maxwell Road
#02-03 Maxwell Chambers Suites
Singapore 069120

singapore@twentyessex.com
t: +65 62257230

13/05/2021

Singaporean and English law diverge on fundamental contract law issue: Singapore Court of Appeal rejects reasoning in Rock Advertising

Charles Lim Teng Siang v Hong Choon Hau [2021] SGCA 43

 

In May 2018, David Lewis QC and Daniel Bovensiepen authored a bulletin about the radical decision of the English Supreme Court in Rock Advertising v MWB Business Exchange Centres Limited [2019] AC 119 (“Rock Advertising”) in respect of the effect of “no oral modification” clauses (“NOM clauses”). The Supreme Court in Rock Advertising had overturned the Court of Appeal and rejected the reasoning in a string of previous cases.

Since then, the decision has been applied in England repeatedly, as well as being cited in four Court of Appeal cases. But the long-running controversy as to the common law effect of NOM clauses on orally agreed variation rolls on. In the very recent case of Charles Lim Teng Siang v Hong Choon Hau [2021] SGCA 43, Singapore’s apex Court has, in a notable unanimous decision by an enlarged five-member panel, disagreed with the majority view (led by Lord Sumption) in Rock Advertising. In doing so, the Singapore Court of Appeal expressly relied upon adverse commentary on the Rock Advertising decision, including our May 2018 bulletin.

In this bulletin, the same authors look at the Singapore Court of Appeal’s recent decision in closer detail.

Download the full article (PDF, 2MB)

 

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David Lewis KC Daniel Bovensiepen
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