[2013] SGHC 135 - Singapore Law Watch

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Law Society of Singapore v Kurubalan s/o Manickam Rengaraju [2013] SGHC 135 Champerty has little in common with the offence of overcharging except in so far as both arise out of or concern arrangements having to do with a solicitor’s remuneration. Mitigating factors 54 A number of mitigating factors were raised that might conduce to leniency. Those that weighed on the Inquiry Committee have been noted (at [21] above). 55 However, in our judgment, these were not relevant mitigating circumstances. While it is true that the Complainant obtained a substantial payout that far exceeded her initial expectation which was in the region of A$300,000, it was not evident how any inspiration on the Respondent’s part contributed to this result. The essence of the Respondent’s assistance consisted of his having enabled the Complainant to kick-start the process of pursuing her claim in Australia and in that sense actually to access justice. Once the process was begun, the bulk of the legal work was in fact carried out by Creevey Russell. In this regard, we accepted that the Complainant’s medical bills were substantial and without the Respondent’s help it was unlikely that she could have afforded to seek and eventually to find a suitable set of lawyers willing to act on a speculative fee basis to bring the claim in Australia. This was a particular concern in this case as it was feared that her claim might be timebarred and this rendered her prospects of success much less certain. But as against this, it may be noted that this may be said to be true to some degree in almost all champertous cases. Given the existing prohibition on such arrangements, this can have only limited weight in the balancing of factors that go to sentencing. Moreover, it was not the case that the Respondent was motivated exclusively, or even substantially, by the purely altruistic concern of 30
Law Society of Singapore v Kurubalan s/o Manickam Rengaraju [2013] SGHC 135 ensuring that his client was able to pursue her claim. He was in it very much for his own eventual gain as seen in his unseemly efforts to pocket the huge, unexpected windfall in the face of his client’s protests. 56 It is true that his client made the complaint against the Respondent despite having known full well the nature of the Champertous Agreement at the time it was entered into and despite having benefitted from his advice and assistance (including his financial outlay of around S$16,000 for disbursements that remain unpaid to this day). But this was of no real weight since it ignored the Respondent’s aggression and persistence in trying to lay claim to a substantial part of the damages the Complainant had recovered. Moreover, to place emphasis on this would be to focus unduly on the seemingly unsatisfactory aspects of the Complainant’s behaviour rather than on anything that exculpated the Respondent. 57 As to the Respondent’s expression of remorse, we did not think that this was made out on the admitted facts. Some indications of remorse were set out by V K Rajah J (as he then was) in Angliss Singapore Pte Ltd v Public Prosecutor [2006] 4 SLR(R) 653 at [76]: As such, the perception that the offence was not committed wilfully but rather on the spur of the moment, by accident or through foolish neglect, the fact that the offender offers restitution or attempts to rectify the situation after being apprised of his offence, the rapidity with which he offers restitution or takes remedial steps, and the willingness of the offender in co-operating with the relevant authorities all constitute ambient circumstances that a court can and should take into account in assessing whether the plea of guilt itself is indicative of remorse and if the offender should accordingly receive a discount in his sentence. 58 These indicia were not present here; we have discussed at some length the Respondent’s improper behaviour to secure the windfall to which he 31
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[2013] SGHC 135 - Singapore Law Watch

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