[2013] SGHC 135 - Singapore Law Watch

Law Society of Singapore v Kurubalan s/o Manickam Rengaraju [2013] SGHC 135
52 The second aggravating factor was that when the Complainant resisted
paying the Respondent the share of the Settlement Sum to which he had laid
claim, the Respondent did not acknowledge his mistake or even pause for
reflection, much less retreat and come to his senses. Instead he responded
aggressively (see [14] to [16] and [25(c)] above) and in the process aggravated
his initial breach. We do not propose to repeat what we have already set out
above, save to observe that the Respondent threatened civil proceedings 19 and
even hinted that criminal charges could be brought (see [16(c)] and [25(c)(v)]
above). We pause to note that this by itself might have amounted to
professional misconduct: see Law Society of Singapore v Terence Tan Bian
Chye [2007] SGDSC 10. In our view, even if these further actions did not
warrant separate misconduct charges, they were at the very least unbecoming
of an Advocate and Solicitor and wholly unacceptable in the context of a
solicitor dealing with his client. They illustrate some of the reasons why
champerty can be an obnoxious and unacceptable practice without careful
limits being drawn. The evil lies in the temptation facing Advocates and
Solicitors who enter into such agreements to descend into wholly
inappropriate and unprofessional conduct in order to protect their own interest
in windfall gains. This was evident in the Respondent’s conduct in this case.
53 The Law Society initially made reference to cases of overcharging and
touting and suggested that these provided appropriate reference points for the
purposes of sentencing because the Respondent stood to gain A$1,200,000
which was at least ten times what he could have charged for his fees based on
the bill of costs that was rendered, which itself seemed on the high side. In
oral submissions, Mr Philip Fong sensibly did not press this argument.
19
RP vol 6 p 1265–1266 (ASOF, paras 18–24)
29