SINGAPORE Law and Practice Contributed by: Benedict Teo, Kelvin Tan, Kong Man Er and Shumin Lin, Drew & Napier LLC
defendant cannot dispose of them to defeat pend- ing claims; and • anti-suit injunctions, which restrain a party from commencing, or continuing to prosecute, proceed- ings in another country. The court may also grant a search order requiring the defendant to permit the claimant to enter the defend- ant’s premises to inspect and seize possession of specified documents and to keep them in safe cus- tody. 6.2 Arrangements for Obtaining Urgent Injunctive Relief Paragraph 85 of the SCPD deals with applications for interim injunctions outside of the court’s office hours. If an application for an interim injunction cannot wait to be heard the next working day, counsel can contact the duty registrar, who will arrange an urgent hearing. The applicant must ensure that all the application papers and the appropriate draft orders have been prepared. If the documents have yet to be filed in court when the counsel seeks an urgent hearing, the appli- cant must undertake to the registrar to have these documents filed no later than the next working day. Counsel must also ensure that all applicable notice requirements are complied with; see 6.3 Availability of Injunctive Relief on an Ex Parte Basis . 6.3 Availability of Injunctive Relief on an Ex Parte Basis All applications should generally be heard inter partes, including applications for injunctive relief. In excep- tional circumstances, injunctive relief can be sought without notice to the defendant. Under paragraph 71 of the SCPD, any party applying for an injunction application to be heard without notice must still give notice to the other parties concerned. The notice may be given by way of email or, in cases of extreme urgency, orally by telephone. The notice should inform the other parties of the date, time and place fixed for the hearing and the nature of the relief sought. If possible, a copy of the relevant court docu- ments should be provided. Except in cases of extreme urgency or with the permission of the court, the party
must give a minimum of two hours’ notice to the other parties before the hearing. Notice need not be given if giving notice would or might defeat the purpose of the application. The rea- sons for not following the SCPD should be clearly set out in the supporting affidavit for the application. If any of the other parties are not present or represent- ed at the hearing of the application, the applicant’s solicitors must inform the court of: • the attempts that were made to notify the other parties of the application; • what documents were given to the other parties and when they were given; and • whether the other parties consent to the applica- tion being heard without their presence. The judge hearing the application decides whether it should proceed without notice, or whether it should be heard with notice given to the defendant if the case is not sufficiently urgent. 6.4 Liability for Damages for the Applicant The applicant for an interim injunction must under- take to the court that it will comply with any order to compensate the respondent for any loss the court might later find resulted wrongfully from the order for injunctive relief. The court may, in an appropriate case, require the applicant to support the undertaking by a payment into court, by providing a bond from an insurance company, a bank guarantee, or a payment to the applicant’s solicitor to be held by the solicitor as an officer of the court pending further order. 6.5 Respondent’s Worldwide Assets and Injunctive Relief An injunction prohibiting the disposal of worldwide assets can be granted to restrain a defendant from dealing with assets located abroad, within several foreign jurisdictions or where some of the assets are within the jurisdiction and some are abroad.
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