Our Notable Cases

ATS Specialized Inc. v LAP Projects (Asia) Pte Ltd [2012] SGHC 173

REPRESENTED BY

Walter Silvester
Email: walter@silvesterlegal.com

WHAT WE ACHIEVED

“The Court accepted the Plaintiff’s arguments and found that there was no tripartite agreement to set-off entered into by the parties. As such, the Court gave judgment for the plaintiff for the full sum of US$325,781.40 as the amount owing under the March 2011 Contract, with interest payable at the rate of 5.33% per annum. Given that the Plaintiff was successful in its claim, the Defendant was also ordered to pay the Plaintiff’s costs for the action.”

CASE SUMMARY

[Contract Law – offer and acceptance, certainty, consideration, determination of the quantum of loans owed by the Defendant to the Plaintiff]

The Plaintiff was a company incorporated in the USA. The main issue in this case is whether there was a “tripartite set-off agreement” validly entered into by the parties which would reduce the quantum of the debt between the Defendant and the Plaintiff.

Mr Silvester argued that there was never a set-off agreement entered into between the parties, this was even though the Plaintiff initially thought a set-off would be the best way of squaring the accounts between the Plaintiff and Defendant. Mr Silvester pointed to the Court’s attention that the initial offer was terminated by rejection, and that a subsequent letter purporting acceptance cannot be deemed to be a valid acceptance as the offer was already terminated. The lengthy email correspondence between the parties was also brought to the Court’s attention, for which it was held that they merely amounted to negotiations and clarifications between the parties, and that there was no valid offers made. Furthermore, the Court also found that there was no valid consideration for the agreement to be formed.