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Grounds publishedDecided 26 Aug 2022
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Singapore International Commercial Court

Larpin, Christian Alfred and another v Kaikhushru Shiavax Nargolwala and another

[2022] SGHC(I) 12Case no. Suit No 3 of 20202 paragraphs

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Grounds of decision

Official text from eLitigation

  1. The applicable costs regime

  2. Entitlement to reasonable costs

  3. [6] In Kiri Industries Ltd v Senda International Capital Ltd and another [2022] 3 SLR 174 (“Kiri”) at [66] it was said:

  4. Establishing reasonable costs

  5. Costs for the substantive proceedings

  6. (a) it was reasonable for them to have vigorously defended claims which included allegations of fraud and dishonesty particularly having in mind Mr Nargolwala’s standing in business circles, and there was no basis for suggesting that their defence of the claims had been oppressive to the plaintiffs;

  7. (b) the proceedings had considerable complexity, and the value of the dispute was quite large involving rescission of a property transaction approaching US$8m and damages in excess of US$1m;

  8. (c) their estimate in their Proposed Case Management Plan dated 6 July 2020 had been of overall costs of S$350,000 excluding taxes and disbursements, on the basis of a trial taking five days; the trial had taken four hearing days plus written closing submissions and a half day for oral closing submissions;

  9. (d) in the defendants’ application for security for costs heard in November 2020 (which was unsuccessful), the plaintiffs had not taken issue with the amount of security sought, being S$350,000;

  10. (e) the plaintiffs’ estimate of their own costs in their Proposed Case Management Plan had been of overall costs of S$500,000; and

  11. (f) the amount of S$350,000 compared favourably with the costs awarded for a five-day trial in B2C2 Ltd v Quoine Pte Ltd [2019] 5 SLR 28.

  12. Costs for the indemnity costs application

  13. Costs for this determination

  14. Conclusion

  15. [21] Doing the arithmetic, the amount payable by the plaintiffs to the defendants is S$392,340.78 inclusive of GST and disbursements.