The decision of V.K. 6 On Wednesday, 8January 2003 between 3.00pm and 4.00pm, DILs employees conducted a training session at the defendants premises. He confirmed through these searches that the usual price of the laser printers was in the region of US$2,000. In doing so, they appear to have also conflated equitable and common law concepts. The fact that it may have been negligent is not a relevant factor in these proceedings. This contention is wholly untenable. Having pointed out 6 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 . 150 The plaintiffs have contended that this court ought to follow the decision in Taylor v Johnson and hold that the contract is not void under common law but voidable only in equity. They are tainted and unenforceable. Daniel was previously a partner and head of the technology practice at Messrs Rajah & Tann. Date of Verdicts: 12 April 2004, 13 January 2005. Where common mistake is pleaded, the presence of agreement is admitted. No rights can pass to third parties. It was listed at the price of $66, when it was advertised on the official HP website for $3,854. 101 RSS Intellectual Property Office of Singapore Expand/Collapse. Altogether different considerations may arise if a party, at a late stage, seeks through an amendment to adduce further evidence to support that same amendment. 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. 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. This was presumably to render the training more lifelike. Section11 of the ETA expressly provides that offers and acceptances may be made electronically. 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. . The plaintiffs are, however, entitled to the cost of the amendments, in any event, which I fix at $1,000. This could account for the substantial number of Canadian cases in this area of the law. 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 If coherence is to be restored to this area of our law, it can only be by declaring that there is no jurisdiction to grant rescission of a contract on the ground of common mistake where that contract is valid and enforceable on ordinary principles of contract law. The mere fact that they suddenly engage in predatory and atypical behaviour may in itself be telling. Entores Ltd v Miles Far East Corp. [1955] 2 Q.B. The fact that the acceptance was automatically generated by a computer software cannot in any manner exonerate the defendant from responsibility. Nor is it disputed that Samuel Teo, or any of the other employees of the defendant, was unaware at all material times of the dramatic chain of events so unwittingly initiated by the former. He holds an accounting degree from NTU. CISG-online is a research platform dedicated to the law and practice of the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods adopted in Vienna on 11 April 1980 (CISG), as well as related areas of international commercial law. In this case, there was no consensus ad idem or meeting of the minds between the parties, which meant that there could be no binding contract between them. 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. 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. Errors may incur wholly unexpected, and sometimes untoward, consequences as these proceedings so amply demonstrate. His own counsels description of him as careful and prudent only serves to corroborate this. 54 The fourth plaintiff admits that he had entertained the idea at the material time that the price posting could have been an error. The issue could be critical where third party rights are in issue as in. A court is not likely to take a sympathetic view of such manner of amendment. . It has been pointed out that the pedigree of these decisions is dubious, to say the least (see [128] and [129] infra). This is an inane argument. 92 The Electronics Transaction Act (Cap88, 1999Rev Ed) (ETA) places Internet contractual dealings on a firmer footing. The argument is that, despite appearances, there is no real correspondence of offer and acceptance and that therefore the transaction must necessarily be void. 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. While the first plaintiff was the source of the information concerning the price posting, the second plaintiff actively communicated with all of the plaintiffs (save the sixth plaintiff), throughout the material period. reference was made by the court to "fraud or a very high degree of misconduct" before the non- mistaken party could be . Chwee KIN Keong AND Others v Digilandmall.COM PTE LTD [2004 ] SGHC 71 paginator.book page 594 tuesday, november 2009 7:05 am 594 singapore law reports (reissue . This cannot be right. After the defendant intimated that it would not be delivering the laser printer, he sent an e-mail excoriating it, asserting, inter alia: Myself, and other people who have been disappointed by you decision, will definitely spread word of the companys lack of honour and integrity to everyone we know and all over the internet! It is essential that the law be perceived as embodying rationality and fairness while respecting the commercial imperative of certainty. I found their attempts to play down the impact of the statements which they had, to all intents and purposes, willingly and deliberately made earlier, unconvincing. He commenced practice in 2000 and currently practices with the law firm representing the plaintiffs in this action. 9 The defendants assertion that Samuel Teo had neither the authority nor the intention to make any alterations to the laser printers price is now accepted by the plaintiffs. The first and fifth plaintiffs ordered exactly a hundred laser printers each. 32 Satisfied with his enquiries in relation to the printer model, he returned to the HP website and placed an order for 100 laser printers at about 2.23am. ThompsonJ of the Ontario High Court applied Hartog v Colin & Shields ([115] supra) and held that the parties were not ad idem and found that no contract had been formed. The terms of the offer are clear and unambiguous and the offeree accepts the offer according to its true sense, but it must have been obvious (and known by the offeree) that the offeror did not intend to make an offer in those terms. Rules of court which are meant to facilitate the conduct of proceedings invariably encapsulate concepts of procedural fairplay. 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. When notified and satisfied that this transaction was successful as well, he placed a final order at 4.21am for ten laser printers on the HP website, charging this to his credit card. 39 The sequence of orders placed by the second plaintiff in the short space of an hour and a half deserves some mention. Limit orders: order to be executed only when the desired price is available. 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. Administration law is the actions made by a government, which adversely affects an individual. In the final analysis, it would appear that the likely existence of an internal error in pricing was clearly within his contemplation. 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. 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. Voces del tesauro. Doctrines and Institutions of Responsible Government. Here are some examples of case citations for other jurisdictions. Notwithstanding, the defendant does not take issue with this as the sixth plaintiffs orders were received and the appropriate automated responses generated. He is currently self-employed and is intimately involved in the multi-level marketing sales of aromatherapy products under the Bel-Air label. The court held that the acceptance has been completed once it is posted although here, the defendants actually did not receive the letter before they sold it to someone else. His revelation that he did not know if this is an error or whether HP will honour this purchase, not to mention the articulation of his hope that by the time you see this email, the price is still at S$66.00 coz they might change it anytime, are all compelling in reflecting his state of mind and awareness that an error had occurred. He graduated from NTU as a bachelor of business studies, specialising in financial analysis. In these circumstances we can see no option but so to hold. 136 First, it was suggested that no contracts had been formed as all the contracts were subject to availability and that a failure to adhere to the directive call to enquire prevented the contracts from coming into existence. It appears there were a series of sms messages between them and at least a few telephone discussions while the purchases were being effected. He is currently self-employed and is intimately involved in the multi-level marketing sales of aromatherapy products under the Bel-Air label. six plaintiffs ordered 1,606 printers. The Canadian and Australian cases have moved along with the eddies of unconscionability. It is axiomatic that normal contractual principles apply but the contractual permutations will obviously be sometimes more complex and spread over a greater magnitude of transactions. He opted to pay for all his purchases by cash on delivery. Transactions over websites are almost invariably instantaneous and/or interactive. 94 Historically, the common law has recognised an anomaly in the contractual features pertaining to a display of goods for sale. 53 He claimed that seeing the same price on the Digilandmall website confirmed his view that there had been no mistake. In the fifth plaintiffs affidavit evidence, he asserted emphatically and unequivocally that at no point did I ever think that the price of the printers were a mistake. 131 In a number of cases, including the present, it may not really matter which view is preferred. 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. 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. 143 The stark gaping difference between the price posting and the market price of the laser printer would have made it obvious to any objective person that something was seriously amiss. Chwee Kin Keong v Digilandmall.com Pte Ltd [2004] 2 SLR(R) 594; [2004] 2 SLR 594 (refd) Gay Choon Ing v Loh Sze Ti Terence Peter [2009] 2 SLR(R) 332; [2009] 2 SLR 332 When pressed as to whether he visited other websites, he said he could not confirm that one way or the other. He claimed that when he could not find the identical model on the US HP website he had assumed initially that the laser printer might be obsolete and was therefore being off-loaded cheaply at $66. The recipient rule appears to be the logical default rule. The plaintiffs also assert in their submissions that if contracts are only upheld if parties acted honourably there would be very few contracts left standing in the commercial world. However, not all principles will or can apply in the same manner that they apply to traditional paper-based and oral contracts. I do not accept that there were no discussions between them on the price posting being an error. Section13 of the ETA deems that a message by a partys automated computer system originates from the party itself. Prejudice is to be viewed broadly to encompass any injustice and embraces both procedural and substantive notions; (d) recognising that while a costs award against the party seeking late amendments can frequently alleviate any inconvenience caused, this may not always be appropriate; (e) taking into account policy considerations that require finality in proceedings and proper time management of the courts resources and scheduling.
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