[2013] SGHC 135 - Singapore Law Watch

Law Society of Singapore v Kurubalan s/o Manickam Rengaraju [2013] SGHC 135
least elsewhere, has been to permit certain species of champertous agreements
with this objective. For instance, England and parts of Australia have reformed
their laws to permit conditional fee agreements. Indeed (though neither
counsel drew this to our attention) just days before we heard the arguments in
this matter, Lord Neuberger, President of the Supreme Court of the United
Kingdom, had delivered the first Harbour Litigation Funding Annual Lecture
entitled “From Barretry, Maintenance and Champerty to Litigation Funding”,
in which he touched on some of these issues.
30 Mr Rajah pointed to official pronouncements in Parliament as evidence
that Singapore too was concerned with the need to preserve access to justice
for those unable to afford legal representation but who, at the same time, were
unable to qualify for legal aid. Mr Rajah further relied on the fact that in the
present case, the Champertous Agreement did not pervert the course of justice
in Singapore at all. On the contrary, it was likely that if the Complainant had
not entered into the Champertous Agreement, she would not have been able to
mount a claim in Australia as she could not otherwise have afforded the
expense. The Champertous Agreement was therefore the key factor that
enabled the Complainant actually to recover compensation for her injuries. In
that sense, according to Mr Rajah, the Respondent had in fact enabled the
Complainant to access justice.
31 We were also urged to have regard to the mitigating factors which the
Inquiry Committee had recognised and which we have set out (at [21] above).
32 Mr Rajah accepted that because the Champertous Agreement was akin
to a financial gamble on the likely outcome of the Complainant’s claim and
because of the potential for abuse manifested in the Respondent’s conduct to
which we have referred (at [25(c)] above), a fine alone would not be an
18