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37 The second plaintiff was insistent in his evidence that there was no communication from the first plaintiff alerting him to the likely existence of the mistake; he contends the first plaintiff merely apprised him of a good deal and sent him the weblink to the HP website. 27 The first plaintiff obviously took the view that the advertisement should be acted upon urgently. 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. Alternatively, knowledge may be readily inferred from what would be regarded as commonly known or notorious facts in the context of the transaction. But it is difficult to see how that can apply here. This e-mail was sent only, 29 The first plaintiff struck me as an opportunistic entrepreneur. 56 He vacillated throughout his evidence between a propensity to embellish his evidence on the one hand and to hold back on the other. Imagine the effect of this negative publicity on your future sales! He is currently employed as an accountant in an accounting firm, Ernst & Young. These considerations take precedence over the culpability associated with causing the mistake. 123 One view maintains that the mistaken party can either attempt to have the contract declared void at common law if the mistake is fundamental or radical, or alternatively seek a remedy in equity, which could include rescission. 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. Introduction The decision of V.K. In other words, he really wanted to ascertain the true price of the laser printer. 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. The fact that it may have been negligent is not a relevant factor in these proceedings. The appellants featured prominently because of the size of their orders. He is described by his counsel in submissions as a prudent and careful person. The most that the court can do in these circumstances is to refuse E [the other party, who wants the contract held void] specific performance, which lies in the discretion of the court and will probably be refused where E has been guilty of some degree of sharp practice. Loose language may result in inadvertently establishing contractual liability to a much wider range of purchasers than resources permit. This, by an uncanny coincidence, was the same person whom he had intended to consult in the resale of the laser printers a topic that he had discussed with the second plaintiff earlier that morning. 63 It is pertinent he too made web searches using the Google search engine. Be that as it may, the fifth plaintiff, soon after he received MsTohs research, shared the information with the second and third plaintiffs. The elements of an offer and acceptance are ex facie satisfied in every transaction asserted in the plaintiffs claims. The payment mode selected by the third plaintiff was cash on delivery. Mistakes that negative consent do not inexorably result in contracts being declared void. 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. Added to his own purchases of 760 units, he was effectively responsible for the purchase of 1,090 laser printers. 81 Plaintiffs counsel thereafter responded somewhat curiously. chwee kin keong and others digilandmall.com pte ltd sghc 71 case number suit decision date 12 april 2004 high court coram rajah jc counsel name(s) tan sok ling Skip to document Ask an Expert Sign inRegister Sign inRegister Home Ask an ExpertNew My Library Discovery Institutions Republic Polytechnic London School of Business and Finance It is set in the context of internet contracting. PDF E-commerce Contract For Sale Of Printers Held Void For Obvious Mistake It is pertinent to note that she placed orders for 32 laser printers including 20 units she ordered on behalf of her sister. 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. The contract stands according to the natural meaning of the words used. 13 The first plaintiff, Chwee Kin Keong, is 29 years old. 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. 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 92 The Electronics Transaction Act (Cap88, 1999Rev Ed) (ETA) places Internet contractual dealings on a firmer footing. Notwithstanding occasional failure, most e-mails arrive sooner rather than later. In-house law team, Chwee Kin Keong v Digilandmall.com Pte Ltd [2005] 1 SLR(R) 502, Contract unilateral mistake Internet Contract Consensus ad Idem Meeting of the Minds Acceptance Offer Void Error. http://www.buy.hp.com.sg/hp/StandardProduct.cfm?prodid=HPC9960A. Case name. [emphasis added]. Unilateral Mistake at . Quite apart from this singularly precise timing, his exchange with Ms Toh is noteworthy for the following reason: when he told her about the various concluded purchases of the laser printers, she immediately thought it was a mistake and that HP would not honour the contracts. 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. After further sms exchanges, the second plaintiff contacted the fifth plaintiff on his mobile phone, urging him to return home to access the e-mail message he had just sent. In effect the Internet conveniently integrates into a single screen traditional advertising, catalogues, shop displays/windows and physical shopping. He received this information through an sms message. His Internet research alone would have confirmed that. 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 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. COOKE v OXLEY (1790) 3 T. R. 653. 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 . 42 Mark Yeow Kinn Keong has a Bachelor of Science (Economics) degree from the University of London. 155 The Internet has revolutionised commerce and radically altered the manner in which commercial interaction currently takes place. 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. 33 After his first order, the second plaintiff contacted the fourth and fifth plaintiffs informing them about the laser printers. Furthermore, they relied on a passage from Singapore Civil Procedure 2003 (Sweet & Maxwell Asia, 2003) at para20/8/47 that asserts: At the trial leave to amend particulars will as a rule be refused (Moss v Malings (1886) 83ChD 603). He worked for a short period in the IT Project Development department of the Standard Chartered Bank, where he became acquainted with the first plaintiff. While this is the general principle for shop displays, it is open to a merchant to offer by way of an advertisement the mechanics of a unilateral or bilateral contract. Theoretically the supply of information is limitless. 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. I invited both parties to indicate if they wished to amend their pleadings. Certain Internet service providers provide the technology to inform a sender that a message has not been properly routed. Bulletin_11_2009 - CLJLaw 101 The applicable rules in relation to transactions over the worldwide web appear to be clearer and less controversial. 67 MsToh subsequently did some research on how companies which had committed similar mistakes over the Internet handled the aftermath. The present article analyses the many important issues that are raised by what is probably the first case on Internet mistake - the Singapore High Court decision of Chwee Kin Keong v Digilandmall.com Pte Ltd [2004] 2 SLR 594. This e-mail was sent only after the first plaintiff had made his own Internet searches on the pricing of the laser printer. Desmond: 13/01/20 01:24 just ordered 3 colour lazer printer for S$66.00 each. 82 The plaintiffs strenuously opposed the defendants amendments principally on the ground it was made at a late juncture. This could account for the substantial number of Canadian cases in this area of the law. Most telling of all, I note that the first to fifth plaintiffs exhibited identical reports in each of their affidavits without any qualification whatsoever. 112 Phang ([106] supra, at 418) rightly observes: It must be stressed that, in this context, a man is taken to have known what would have been obvious to a reasonable person in the light of the surrounding circumstances. 11 The single most controversial issue in these proceedings is the knowledge possessed and/or belief entertained by each of the plaintiffs when they entered into each of the transactions for the purchase of the laser printers. They were selling a HP laser printer and an employee accidently made a mistake as to the price of the printer on their website. 151 The claims by the plaintiffs are audacious, opportunistic and contrived. The law of mistake has generated its own genre of mistakes and obfuscation. 7 At about 3.36pm, Samuel Teo, an employee of DIL, inadvertently uploaded the contents of the training template onto the Digiland commerce website operated by DIL, in place of the test website allocated for the training. 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 affidavits did not add anything new. Indeed he had conduct of significant phases of these proceedings on behalf of the plaintiffs. Neither party raised any objections. The rationale for this is that a court will not sanction a contract where there is no, 150 The plaintiffs have contended that this court ought to follow the decision in, A thread runs through our contract law that effect must be given to, 152 This view has also found support in the Singapore context. It is an important subject for the future development of English contract law. Yong Pung HowCJ in Tribune Investment Trust Inc v Soosan Trading Co Ltd [2000] 3 SLR 405 at [40] opined: [T]he function of the court is to try as far as practical experience allows, to ensure that the reasonable expectations of honest men are not disappointed. Having ascertained that the laser printer was being advertised at $66, he decided to undertake further online searches through Yahoo.com and Ebay.com. 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. 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. The pleadings, in such instances, merely formalise what is already before the court. Kiat Boon, Daniel SENG - NUS Law When the defendant learnt of the error, it promptly removed the advertisement from its websites, and informed the plaintiffs as well as 778 others who had placed orders for a total of 4,086 laser printers that the price posting was an unfortunate error, and that it would therefore not be meeting the orders. 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. I do not know if this is an error or whether HP will honour this purchase. 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. The plaintiffs and the defendant later reached an agreement to dispense with any further oral evidence, save for that of Tan Cheng Peng. Ltd. Yeo Tiong Min* I. The court has to be astute and adopt a pragmatic and judicious stance in resolving such issues. 85 Having stated the general rule, it is imperative that the rationale underlying this approach be understood. 111 In Chwee Kin Keong v Digilandmall.com Pte Ltd [2005] 1 SLR(R) 502 ("Chwee Kin Keong"), this court said at [101]: Under O 20 r 5(1) of the Rules of Court (Cap 322, R 5, 2004 Rev Ed), the court may grant leave to amend a pleading at any stage of the proceedings. There is no larger noble principle, such as the sanctity of contracts, to be observed or protected in these proceedings. The payment mode opted for was cash on delivery. There is no question, however, that he placed the orders, that these orders were received by the HP website and that the same automated response sent to the other plaintiffs was sent out to him. 4 The defendant is a company that sells information technology (IT) related products over the Internet to consumers. Indeed this appears to be the underlying rationale for the unique legal characteristics attributed to an invitation to treat; see. He sought to amend his affidavit and testified that if the references in his affidavit implied the acknowledgement of a mistake, they were formulated not by him but by his previous solicitors and were incorrect. 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. PDF CISG-online | CISG-online.org The contract stands according to the natural meaning of the words used. After all, what would he do with 100 obsolete commercial laser printers? case concerning the purchase of laser printers from an online retailer, Chwee Kin Keong v Digilandmall 76 : To effect the purchase transactions on the respective websites, the plaintiffs had to navigate through several web pages. [2005] SGCA 2 - eLitigation chwee kin keong v digilandmall high court Scorpio: 13/01/20 01:33 as many as I can! The fact that it may have been negligent is not a relevant factor in these proceedings. While a court of law does not sit as a court of commercial morality, it cannot lose sight of this central objective of contract law. The law may not imply a condition precedent as to the availability of stock simply to bail out an Internet merchant from a bad bargain, a fortiori in the sale of information and probably services, as the same constraints as to availability and supply may not usually apply to such sales. 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]. 44 He made his first purchase of ten laser printers at about 2.42am. V K Rajah JC: Para continuar leyendo. Ltd.1 has the makings of a student's classic for several reasons: it presents a textbook .