Case Details
- Citation: [2023] SGCA 42
- Title: How Weng Fan and others v Sengkang Town Council and other appeals
- Court: Court of Appeal of the Republic of Singapore
- Date of Decision: 29 November 2023
- Judgment Date (reserved): 28 July 2023
- Judges: Sundaresh Menon CJ, Judith Prakash JCA, Tay Yong Kwang JCA, Woo Bih Li JAD, Andrew Phang Boon Leong SJ
- Appellants / Plaintiffs in the Appeals (as applicable): How Weng Fan and others; Sylvia Lim Swee Lian and others; Sengkang Town Council (as appellant in CA 200)
- Respondents / Defendants in the Appeals (as applicable): Sengkang Town Council; Aljunied-Hougang Town Council
- Parties (key individuals/entities): Town Councillors: Ms Sylvia Lim, Mr Low Thia Khiang, Mr Pritam Singh, Mr Chua Zhi Hon, Mr Kenneth Foo Seck Guan. Employees: Ms How Weng Fan and Mr Danny Loh Chong Meng (estate represented by Ms How). Corporate party: FM Solutions & Services Pte Ltd (“FMSS”).
- Underlying Suits: Suit Nos 668 and 716 of 2017
- Town Councils in the underlying suits: Aljunied-Hougang Town Council (“AHTC”); Pasir Ris-Punggol Town Council (“PRPTC”/as referenced in the extract); Sengkang Town Council (“STC”)
- Appeals (Civil Appeal Nos): CA/CA 196/2019, CA/CA 197/2019, CA/CA 198/2019, CA/CA 199/2019, CA/CA 200/2019
- Legal Area: Civil Procedure — Costs
- Statutes Referenced: (Not fully specified in the provided extract; reference is made to s 52 of the TCA in the earlier merits judgment)
- Cases Cited (as provided): [2000] SGHC 47; [2015] SGHCR 6; [2023] SGCA 42
- Related Decisions (as referenced in the extract): How Weng Fan and others v Sengkang Town Council and other appeals [2023] 1 SLR 707 (“Judgment”); How Weng Fan and others v Sengkang Town Council and other appeals [2023] 2 SLR 235 (“Supplementary Judgment”); Sim Poh Ping v Winsta Holding Pte Ltd and another and other appeals [2020] 1 SLR 1199
- Judgment Length: 38 pages, 10,843 words
Summary
This decision of the Court of Appeal concerns the costs of five related appeals arising from earlier litigation involving Town Councils, their members, and senior employees. The Court had already determined the substantive merits in a prior judgment ([2023] 1 SLR 707) and then issued a supplementary judgment ([2023] 2 SLR 235) clarifying the precise orders to be made. The present appeal is therefore not about liability in the first instance, but about how the costs should be allocated after the Court’s mixed and partially successful outcomes across multiple appeals.
The Court’s task was complicated by the fact that different parties succeeded on different issues: some claims were reversed, others were upheld, and one appeal (CA 200) was dismissed because the fiduciary-duty basis for certain remedies fell away. The Court also had to consider the “exceptional” nature and complexity of the litigation, the procedural history, and the parties’ conduct in relation to costs submissions and the refinement of the issues after the merits and supplementary decisions.
Ultimately, the Court’s approach reflects a structured costs analysis: identifying the real substance of success, assessing whether any party could be said to have “substantially succeeded”, and then determining whether the circumstances justified departures from the usual costs principles. The decision is particularly useful for practitioners because it demonstrates how appellate courts handle costs where outcomes are not binary and where multiple overlapping claims and issues are litigated across several appeals.
What Were the Facts of This Case?
The litigation arose out of suits brought by Town Councils against their own members and senior employees, as well as a corporate entity connected to the employees. The Court of Appeal’s earlier merits judgment established the factual and legal context: the Town Councils alleged breaches of duty, including fiduciary breaches and negligence, connected to failures in a “System” of controls and to decisions about contracts awarded to third parties. The Court’s earlier findings were significant because they involved both internal governance failures and issues of personal liability for Town Councillors and employees.
In the appeals that led to the costs decision, the parties were arranged in a complex matrix. The Town Councillors were Ms Sylvia Lim Swee Lian, Mr Low Thia Khiang, Mr Pritam Singh, Mr Chua Zhi Hon, and Mr Kenneth Foo Seck Guan. The senior employees were Ms How Weng Fan and Mr Danny Loh Chong Meng, with Ms How acting as personal representative of Mr Loh’s estate. There was also FM Solutions & Services Pte Ltd (“FMSS”), of which Ms How and Mr Loh were directors and shareholders at the material time. These individuals and FMSS were co-defendants in the suits below.
The appeals were brought across two Town Councils: Aljunied-Hougang Town Council (“AHTC”) and Sengkang Town Council (“STC”). The Court of Appeal described five appeals (CA 196 to CA 200), each targeting different aspects of the trial judge’s findings on liability. In broad terms, CA 196 and CA 197 were brought by the employees and FMSS against STC and AHTC respectively; CA 198 and CA 199 were brought by Town Councillors against STC and AHTC respectively; and CA 200 was brought by STC against certain Town Councillors and the employees, challenging the trial judge’s limitations on remedies.
After the merits judgment, the Court issued a supplementary judgment to clarify orders, particularly in light of perceived inadequacies in AHTC’s pleadings on certain issues. The parties then proceeded to submit written submissions on costs. The costs process was iterative: the Court directed multiple rounds of written submissions, including responses to the Court’s questions before the hearing, submissions after the merits judgment, and further submissions after the supplementary judgment. This procedural history matters because it affects the Court’s assessment of the work done, the issues that remained live, and the extent to which each party’s position was vindicated.
What Were the Key Legal Issues?
The central legal issue in this decision is how to determine costs in appellate proceedings where the outcomes are mixed and where different parties succeed on different issues. In ordinary circumstances, costs follow the event, but appellate litigation often produces partial success. Here, the Court had to decide whether particular appellants should be treated as having “substantially succeeded” in the appeals, and whether any party should receive costs despite losing on some heads of claim.
A second issue concerns the interaction between the Court’s substantive determinations and the costs allocation. The Court had reversed many factual findings and legal conclusions in the merits judgment, and it had held that certain parties were negligent and, in the relevant context, that the degree of negligence amounted to “gross negligence” such that personal liability could not be avoided under s 52 of the TCA. Costs therefore had to reflect not only which claims were allowed or dismissed, but also the significance of the issues on which parties succeeded.
A third issue relates to the procedural and remedial complexity of the litigation, especially in CA 200. The Court noted that STC withdrew CA 200 in part just before the hearing, and that the parties agreed to apply a “hybrid approach” (as set out in Sim Poh Ping v Winsta Holding Pte Ltd) to the causation and loss assessment for equitable compensation. The Court ultimately dismissed CA 200 because it found that the relevant parties owed no fiduciary duties to AHTC, causing the reparative compensation issue to fall away. This meant that the costs analysis had to account for an appeal that became narrower and then failed on a threshold basis.
How Did the Court Analyse the Issues?
The Court approached costs by first situating the appeals within the overall litigation narrative. It emphasised that it had already dealt with the substantive merits and clarified the orders in the supplementary judgment. The costs decision therefore proceeds on the premise that the Court’s liability findings and remedial conclusions are settled. The practical question becomes: given those settled outcomes, who should bear the costs of the appellate process, and to what extent?
In analysing success, the Court identified the nature of each appeal and the specific heads of liability that were reversed or upheld. For example, in CA 196 and CA 197, the employees and FMSS succeeded in reversing some findings but were still held liable in negligence for permitting control failures in the System to exist. Similarly, in CA 198 and CA 199, Town Councillors succeeded in reversing some findings but were held liable in negligence for control failures, and in Ms Lim’s case, for causing AHTC to award a fresh contract to Red-Power rather than renewing contracts with Digo and Terminal 9 at cheaper rates. This “mixed success” required the Court to avoid simplistic binary reasoning.
The Court also took account of the Court’s earlier determination that the negligence in the relevant context amounted to gross negligence, which affected personal liability and thus the stakes of the litigation. While the costs decision is not a re-litigation of merits, the Court’s earlier findings inform how the Court characterises the importance of the issues that each party fought over. Where a party’s appeal succeeded in reversing major liability findings, that weighs in favour of awarding costs to that party, but where the party remained liable on other central issues, the award may be limited or offset.
Further, the Court considered the parties’ submissions on costs and their framing of “substantial success”. The Town Councillors argued that they should be awarded costs for CA 198, CA 199 and CA 200 because, in substance, the majority of the claims pursued against them were dismissed as a result of the appeals. They pointed to the dismissal of claims for breach of fiduciary duties relating to waiver of tender, breach of duties relating to award of contracts to third-party contractors, and the interpretation of s 52 of the TCA. They acknowledged, however, that they did not fully succeed: they were found negligent in relation to control failures and, for Ms Lim, in relation to the Red-Power contract decision. This acknowledgement is important because it shows that the Court had to weigh partial vindication against residual liability.
Although the extract provided does not include the remainder of the Court’s reasoning on the specific costs orders, the structure of the decision indicates that the Court would apply established appellate costs principles, including the general rule that costs follow the event, tempered by the reality that success may be partial and that the “event” may be defined by the substance of the outcome rather than the technical result on each issue. The Court also referenced the possibility of a certificate under O 59 r 19 of the Rules of Court, which would be relevant if the Court considered the appeals exceptional in complexity or importance. The mention of this provision signals that the Court was alive to the need to calibrate costs in a case of unusual complexity.
What Was the Outcome?
The outcome of this decision is a determination of the costs for the five appeals (CA 196 to CA 200), after the Court’s earlier merits and supplementary judgments. The Court’s orders reflect the mixed nature of success: some parties succeeded in reversing certain liability findings, but others remained liable in negligence for control failures and, in Ms Lim’s case, for the Red-Power contract decision. CA 200 was dismissed because the fiduciary-duty basis for reparative compensation was not made out, meaning that the remedy issue fell away.
Practically, the decision provides guidance on how appellate courts allocate costs where multiple appeals overlap and where the Court’s final liability findings are not uniform across all parties. For litigants, the decision is a reminder that costs can turn on the Court’s assessment of the real substance of success, not merely on which party won or lost a particular issue in isolation.
Why Does This Case Matter?
This case matters because it demonstrates how the Court of Appeal handles costs in a complex multi-party, multi-appeal litigation where the merits outcome is mixed. Many costs disputes in appellate practice arise from the difficulty of mapping partial success to a coherent costs result. Here, the Court had to reconcile reversals of factual findings and legal conclusions with the persistence of liability on other central grounds. The decision therefore serves as a practical reference for lawyers preparing costs submissions in appellate cases.
Second, the decision is significant for practitioners dealing with Town Council litigation and governance-related disputes. The earlier merits findings involved negligence, gross negligence, and personal liability considerations under the TCA framework. While this costs decision does not revisit those substantive doctrines, it shows how the Court’s merits characterisation can influence the costs narrative—particularly where parties argue that they “substantially succeeded” by defeating major claims.
Third, the decision highlights the importance of procedural discipline in costs submissions. The Court directed multiple rounds of written submissions, and the parties revised their costs indications to account for additional work done. This underscores that costs are not only about the legal outcome but also about the litigation process: what issues remained live, what work was required to address them, and how the parties’ positions evolved after the merits and supplementary judgments.
Legislation Referenced
- Town Councils Act (TCA): s 52 (referenced in the earlier merits judgment as to avoidance of personal liability, and discussed in the context of the appeals)
- Rules of Court: O 59 r 19 (certificate of exceptional complexity/importance referenced in the extract)
Cases Cited
- [2000] SGHC 47
- [2015] SGHCR 6
- Sim Poh Ping v Winsta Holding Pte Ltd and another and other appeals [2020] 1 SLR 1199
- How Weng Fan and others v Sengkang Town Council and other appeals [2023] 1 SLR 707
- How Weng Fan and others v Sengkang Town Council and other appeals [2023] 2 SLR 235
- How Weng Fan and others v Sengkang Town Council and other appeals [2023] SGCA 42
Source Documents
This article analyses [2023] SGCA 42 for legal research and educational purposes. It does not constitute legal advice. Readers should consult the full judgment for the Court's complete reasoning.