SINGAPORE Law and Practice Contributed by: Foo Yuet Min, Kong Man Er, Shumin Lin and See Chern Yang, Drew & Napier LLC
6. Injunctive Relief 6.1 Circumstances of Injunctive Relief An injunction is an order of the court requiring a party to do or refrain from doing something. It may be permanent or interim. A permanent injunction will be granted where the claimant’s rights have been infringed and will be further infringed if the injunction is denied and if damages will not be an adequate remedy. An interim injunction is a protective order to preserve the status quo until the court can fully adjudicate the dispute. The jurisdiction to grant an interim injunction is based on three fundamental principles. • The first is that it should protect some recog- nisable right, in respect of which the applicant usually seeks substantive relief. There must be a serious question to be tried, and the balance of convenience must lie, in favour of granting the interlocutory relief. • The second is that an interim injunction does not finally decide the issues in dispute between the parties, but only seeks to protect parties from irreparable harm. The court should take whichever course appears to carry the lower risk of injustice. • The third is that if the court finds in the final judgment that an interim injunction had wrongly prevented a party from exercising rights, the court may seek to restore that party to the position it would have been in had it not been subjected to a restraint. The court may grant a variety of interim injunc- tions, including:
receives in a professional capacity from a third party and conveys to the client. • Second, litigation privilege covers information and materials created and collected for the dominant purpose of the litigation, at a time when litigation is in reasonable contempla- tion. 5.6 Rules Disallowing Disclosure of a Document In addition to legal professional privilege, a party may rely on other exclusionary rules to withhold disclosure of certain documents. These include “without prejudice” negotiatory communications and “marital communications”. “Without prejudice” communications are state- ments made by opposing parties (or their solici- tors) to each other in the course of settlement negotiations. “Without prejudice” communica- tions may not be disclosed unless both parties consent. Such protection from disclosure is aimed at facilitating and encouraging out-of- court settlements. “Marital communications” privilege is a statu- tory right based on the policy that relationships between spouses ought not to be disrupted. No person who is or has been married can be compelled, or permitted, to disclose any com- munication made to that person during marriage by that person’s spouse. Such communications continue to be privileged even if the marriage comes to an end. Only the spouse who made the communication can waive the privilege.
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