The E-Mail Acceptance Rule. Document Citado por Relacionados. See now, also, 12 The plaintiffs both collectively and individually maintained adamantly that while they thought that the price of $66 appeared to be a good deal they did not think that the website prices had been mistakenly placed or inserted. He claimed that when he could not find the identical model on the US HP website he had assumed initially that the laser printer might be obsolete and was therefore being off-loaded cheaply at $66. These orders were placed at a price of S$66 each, whereas the actual price was S$3,854 each. He placed his first order for 50 units at about 2.58am, and his second order for another 50 units at 3.22am, again through the HP website. The goods are not on offer but are said to be an invitation to treat. Others do not. Chwee KIN Keong AND Others v Digilandmall.COM PTE LTD [2004 ] SGHC 71 paginator.book page 594 tuesday, november 2009 7:05 am 594 singapore law reports (reissue . 140 The defendant has however properly asserted that there was a unilateral mistake that vitiated all the contracts. There can be no other reasonable explanation. 144 I find, in the alternative, that the plaintiffs, given each of their backgrounds, would in any event, each have separately realised and appreciated, before placing their purchase orders, that a manifest mistake had occurred even if no communications on the error had taken place between them. Market orders: order to be executed immediately at the best available price. It seems to me that he was trying to tailor his evidence to fit neatly within the legal parameters of the plaintiffs case. Take a look at some weird laws from around the world! In accordance with s15(1) of the ETA, acceptance would be effective the moment the offer enters that node of the network outside the control of the originator. Given its global reach and ever changing technological advancements, Internet usage will pose a myriad of issues for resolution. The recipient rule appears to be the logical default rule. In the final stage of the process, after the payment mode was indicated, each of the plaintiffs was notified successful transaction your order and payment transaction has been processed. 40 When the fourth plaintiff responded to the first plaintiffs mass e-mail, he copied his response to the second plaintiff. There cannot be any legitimate expectation of enforcement on the part of the non-mistaken party seeking to take advantage of appearances. The terms of the offer are clear and unambiguous and the offeree accepts the offer according to its true sense, Although a mistaken party will not often be able to discharge the onus of showing that the other party, 118 The Canadian courts have been the most active common law courts explicating and developing this area of the law. I note that Chitty at para5-089, fn25 sagely opines that Taylor v Johnson does not represent English law, at least, where the other party knows that a mistake has been made. He then zealously sent at about 2.58am, an e-mail to 54 persons, all of whom were friends and/or business associates. Certainty in commercial transactions should not be trifled with, as this will inevitably affect how commercial and business exchanges are respected and effected. Inflexible and mechanical rules lead to injustice. Prior to being self-employed, he was a corporate banker with Standard Chartered Bank, Singapore, for four years. NZULR, vol. He somewhat muddied the authority of his observations by apparently accepting in Gallie v Lee [1969] 2 Ch 17 at 33 (affirmed on appeal in Saunders v Anglia Building Society [1971] AC 1004) that in Cundy v Lindsay there was no contract at all. The fourth plaintiffs single transaction with the Digilandmall website was confirmed by a similar automated response stating Successful Purchase Confirmation from Digilandmall. They even discussed the possible scenario of the defendant not honouring the transactions. 97 Different rules may apply to e-mail transactions and worldwide web transactions. 96 In an Internet sale, a prospective purchaser is not able to view the physical stock available. In the context of its true market value the absurd price of $66 was almost the commercial equivalent of virtually giving away the laser printers. 105 It is not only reasonable but right that the objective appearance of a contract should not operate in favour of a party who is aware, in the eyes of the law, of the true state of affairs when, for instance, there is real misapprehension on the part of the mistaken party and when the actual reality of the situation is starkly obvious. This final mass e-mail only reinforces my view that the first plaintiff consistently and continuously entertained the view that the price posting on the HP website was a mistake. It had consciously not inserted any limits to the number of products a buyer could purchase again, quite clearly, to solicit more business. The essence of unilateral mistake is the knowledge or deemed knowledge of a mistake and though fraud may often be present it is not an essential ingredient. 26 It is clear from the priority status accorded to the e-mail that the first plaintiff was sharing his knowledge of a good deal. 122 For now it appears that a mistaken party can have two bites at the cherry. But it is difficult to see how that can apply here. 21 The first plaintiff must have realised at the outset that he would have to explain with a certain measure of credibility the purport and significance of all his Internet communications between 1.00am and 3.00am on 13January 2003. It is pertinent to note that she placed orders for 32 laser printers including 20 units she ordered on behalf of her sister. At 4.16am he placed another order for one laser printer, by credit card, on the HP website. Often the essence of good business is the use of superior knowledge. Thus the task of ascertaining whether the parties have reached agreement as to the terms of a contract can involve quite a complex amalgam of the objective and the subjective and involve the application of a principle that bears close comparison with the doctrine of estoppel. Quite apart from this singularly precise timing, his exchange with Ms Toh is noteworthy for the following reason: when he told her about the various concluded purchases of the laser printers, she immediately thought it was a mistake and that HP would not honour the contracts. Placing an advertisement on the Internet is essentially advertising or holding out to the world at large. I cannot accept that. It is simply inconceivable that when he entered into the purchase transaction, he did not know, or at the very least did not have a real and abiding belief that the price posting was an error. Olley v Marlborough Court [1949] 1 KB 532 Omnium D'Enterprises v . 120 The widening of jurisdiction to embrace a broad equitable jurisdiction could well encourage litigious behaviour and promote uncertainty. The second issue was raised by me and touched upon contentions made by both parties in their written submissions. 47 Not content with making his own purchases, he woke up his brother and transacted 330 units on his behalf. Theoretically the supply of information is limitless. Such errors can be magnified almost instantaneously and may be harder to detect than if made in a face to face transaction or through physical document exchanges. CISG-online is a research platform dedicated to the law and practice of the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods adopted in Vienna on 11 April 1980 (CISG), as well as related areas of international commercial law. [emphasis added]. Typical transactions are usually but not invariably characterised by (a)indecent alacrity; and (b)behaviour that any fair-minded commercial person similarly circumstanced would regard as a patent affront to commercial fairplay or morality. Adopting an objective standard, executory contracts have in fact been entered into and concluded between the parties. When the defendants discovered this mistake on their website, they sent an email to the complainants to say they would not be fulfilling this order. The modern approach in contract law requires very little to find the existence of consideration. This was borne out by the case of Chwee Kin Keong and Others v. Digilandmall.com Pte Ltd [2004] SGHC 71 where an autogenerated email with "Successful Purchase Confirmation" in its subject . Indeed he had conduct of significant phases of these proceedings on behalf of the plaintiffs. I found his entire evidence relating to his communication with the first and other plaintiffs unsatisfactory and in many aspects incredulous. In the final analysis, it would appear that the likely existence of an internal error in pricing was clearly within his contemplation. Who bears the risk of such mistakes? If this rule applies to international sales, is it sensible to have a different rule for domestic sales? (See for example the approach in Williams v Roffey Bros & Nicholls (Contractors) Ltd [1990] 1AllER 512.) Decisions cannot be reconciled and expressions, terminology and phraseology in different decisions mean different things to different courts and even judges within the same judicial systems. Web Communication: A Review Of Chwee Kin Keong And Others v. Digilandmall.com pte ltd by Rokiah Kadir [2009] 8 CLJ xxi. The decision of the British Columbia Court of Appeal in 25659 BC Ltd v 456795 BC Ltd (1999) 171DLR(4th) 470 at [25] to [26], is instructive: 25 The law of mistake was discussed in depth by McLachlinCJBC in First City Capital Ltd v BC Building Corp (1989), 43BLR 29 (SC). Scorpio: 13/01/20 01:25 ok but how come got such a good deal? (c) the need to reach commercially sensible solutions while respecting traditional principles applicable to instances of genuine error or mistake. 27 The first plaintiff obviously took the view that the advertisement should be acted upon urgently. As with any normal contract, Internet merchants have to be cautious how they present an advertisement, since this determines whether the advertisement will be construed as an invitation to treat or a unilateral contract. The defendant was entitled to stake its entire defence on the basis of common law, though it would have been prudent ex abundanti cautela to have asserted the equitable position in the alternative. This is a disingenuous contention that desperately attempts to palliate their conduct in the subject transactions. After further sms exchanges, the second plaintiff contacted the fifth plaintiff on his mobile phone, urging him to return home to access the e-mail message he had just sent. In addition, he despatched e-mails to the fourth and fifth plaintiffs attaching a hyperlink to the HP website. 100 There is however another statute that ought to be taken into consideration in determining the appropriate default rule in e-commerce transactions. This cannot be right. They were selling a HP laser printer and an employee accidently made a mistake as to the price of the printer on their website.. Cases It appears that it wanted to leave no stone unturned and had therefore mounted a root and branch attack on the plaintiffs claims. Interestingly, Desmond also remarked to the first plaintiff that he wasnt greedy before I tok to u. 112 Phang ([106] supra, at 418) rightly observes: It must be stressed that, in this context, a man is taken to have known what would have been obvious to a reasonable person in the light of the surrounding circumstances. 92 The Electronics Transaction Act (Cap88, 1999Rev Ed) (ETA) places Internet contractual dealings on a firmer footing. There is often, but not inexorably, a co-relationship between the timing when the amendment is sought and the adverse consequences for the other party. While these contentions were well within the scope of the evidence adduced and their respective lines of cross-examination, they appeared to transgress their respective pleadings. They are all well-educated professionals articulate, entrepreneurial and, quite bluntly, streetwise and savvy individuals. Why? As such, I would strongly appeal to you to reconsider your decision. http://www.epinions.com/HP_Color_LaserJet_4600_Series_Printer_Printers. Similar works. Why? The defendant programmed the software. He graduated from NTU as a bachelor of business studies, specialising in financial analysis. He holds an accounting degree from NTU. . Someone referred me to the HP website which shows the price of this HP Colour LaserJet 4600 Series as S$66.00. It was the defendants computer system. Lord Griffiths in Ketteman v Hansel Properties Ltd [1987] AC 189 at 220 stated: [T]o allow an amendment before a trial begins is quite different from allowing it at the end of the trial to give an apparently unsuccessful defendant an opportunity to renew the fight on an entirely different defence. The first and fifth plaintiffs ordered exactly a hundred laser printers each. [emphasis added]. The marrow of contractual relationships should be the parties intention to create a legal relationship. It was found that the plaintiffs must have known or realised that the offer did not express the true intention of the defendants. [The Myth of Mistake in the English Law of Contract (1954) 70LQR 385 at 396]. 145 If the price of a product is so absurdly low in relation to its known market value, it stands to reason that a reasonable man would harbour a real suspicion that the price may not be correct or that there may be some troubling underlying basis for such a pricing. 58 The fifth plaintiff was first informed by the second plaintiff at about 2.30am about cheap laser printers being available for purchase. 108 Chitty on Contracts (28th Ed, 1999) vol1 observes at para5-035: It is not clear whether for the mistake to be operative it must actually be known to the other party, or whether it is enough that it ought to have been apparent to any reasonable man. A prospective purchaser is entitled to rely on the terms of the web advertisement. 30 Tan Wei Teck is 30 years old. Furthermore, they relied on a passage from Singapore Civil Procedure 2003 (Sweet & Maxwell Asia, 2003) at para20/8/47 that asserts: At the trial leave to amend particulars will as a rule be refused (Moss v Malings (1886) 83ChD 603). 82 The plaintiffs strenuously opposed the defendants amendments principally on the ground it was made at a late juncture. Case law chwee kin keong v digilandmallcom pte ltd. School Nanyang Technological University; Course Title ACC 1301; Uploaded By saint_huimin. There is no merit at all in this contention. Inflexible and mechanical rules lead to injustice. Yong Pung HowCJ in, [T]he function of the court is to try as far as practical experience allows, to ensure that the, Tan Sok Ling, Malcolm Tan and Mohan Das Vijayaratnam (Tan S L and Partners) for plaintiffs; Certainty in commercial transactions should not be trifled with, as this will inevitably affect how commercial and business exchanges are respected and effected. - This is also the position as regards friends: see Coward v. MIB (1963). The first plaintiffs riposte, should such a situation come to pass, was to sue them lor. His Internet research alone would have confirmed that. In New Zealand, the legislature enacted the Contractual Mistake Act 1977. After receiving the e-mail from the first plaintiff, he visited the relevant HP website pages. The initial order for 30 laser printers was placed at round 3.45am while the second order for 300 units was placed at around 3.53am. 64 The fifth plaintiff was vague and tentative in many crucial aspects of his evidence. The law ought to take a practical approach in dealing with such cases if it appears that by exercising reasonable care the true facts ought to be known. One of the few cases on electronic contract formation in Singapore was Chwee Kin Keong v Digilandmall. If stock of a product has been exhausted, a prospective purchaser cannot sue for specific performance or damages as he has merely made an offer that has not been accepted by the merchant. The e-mails sent at 2.34am were also captioned Go load it now! However, at the actual hearing of the applications, plaintiffs counsel opposed any amendments whatsoever to the defence and sought leave to withdraw the plaintiffs earlier unilateral amendments. This has clearly caused much confusion in the common law jurisdictions. Further, the character of the mistake was such that any reasonable person similarly circumstanced as each of the plaintiffs would have had every reason to believe that a manifest error had occurred. This was not noticed by the company until over 4,000 printers were ordered. No cash had been collected. A viewer from any part of the world may want to enter into a contract to purchase a product as advertised. The plaintiffs assert they were not aware of the defendants mistake when they placed their orders, and had believed the offer was genuine. Mistakes that negative consent do not inexorably result in contracts being declared void. In such cases, it would be unconscionable to enforce the bargain and equity will set aside the contract. As part of its business, it operates a website owned by Hewlett Packard (HP) at http://www.buyhp.com.sg (the HP website) where only HP products are sold. The High Court of Australia in Taylor v Johnson purportedly relied on Solle v Butcher, Bell v Lever Brothers, Limited [1932] AC 161, McRae v Commonwealth Disposals Commission (1951) 84CLR 377, all cases of common mistake, to suggest that in unilateral mistake a contracting party cannot assert, by relying on his own mistake, that a contract is void, notwithstanding the issue is fundamental or known to the other side. Media reports after the discovery of the mistake. The brief will discuss whether a tort of invasion of privacy should be developed by the courts. In Chwee Kin Keong v. Digilandmall.com Pte Ltd, one of the defendant's employees mistakenly uploaded the contents of a training template onto the defendant's website, resulting in the retail price of S$3,854 for a commercial laser printer on the website being replaced with the figure S$66. Being fully conscious of the pivotal nature of this point, I have duly accorded particular attention to the evidence and credibility of each of the plaintiffs. While they did not invariably admit that their searches were made prior to each of the respective transactions, it was plain that they did not tell the whole truth about what they knew, how they knew it and when they knew it. It takes the view that there is no jurisdiction in equity to rescind a contract that is valid at common law, on the basis of mistake. These considerations take precedence over the culpability associated with causing the mistake. Entores Ltd v Miles Far East Corp. [1955] 2 Q.B. Rather, in my opinion, constructive knowledge alone will suffice to invoke equitys conscience. 99 Like the somewhat arbitrary selection of the postal rule for ordinary mail, in the ultimate analysis, a default rule should be implemented for certainty, while accepting that such a rule should be applied flexibly to minimise unjustness. Rajah J.C. in the Singapore High Court in Chwee Kin Keong v. Digilandmall.com Pte. 1.47K subscribers Chwee Kin Keong v Digilandmall.com Pte Ltd [2005] Facts The defendant, Digilandmall.com Pte Ltd, were an online IT company that sold related software and hardware from. 118 The Canadian courts have been the most active common law courts explicating and developing this area of the law. Desmond: 13/01/20 01:24 just ordered 3 colour lazer printer for S$66.00 each. Having pointed out 6 that a court 'will generally be cautious if not reluctant to effect any amendments once the hearing has commenced; even more so once the evidential phase of the . Nor could he satisfactorily explain why he initially made the Internet searches to ensure the offer was genuine. 48 The third plaintiff annexed to his affidavit the transcript of the Channel NewsAsia report where he was quoted. The CISG has currently been adopted by 95 Contracting States world-wide. This view seems to suggest that principles of equity invariably provide an equally strong but more elastic second string to the bow. Contract doctrine is substantially predicated upon achieving an ethical equilibrium between the individualistic ethic and community ethic in order to protect reasonable or legitimate expectations. In a physical sale, the merchant can immediately turn down an offer to purchase a product that has been advertised; otherwise he may be inundated with offers he cannot justify. 71 The sixth plaintiffs position can be dealt with very briefly. 8 The proper description of the laser printer, HPC9660A Color LaserJet 4600, was, as a result of the accident, replaced by the numerals 55; while the numerals 66 replaced the correct price of the laser printer priced at $3,854 and the numerals 77 replaced the original corporate price of the laser printer priced at $3,448. Despite the general views expressed in Taylor v Johnson (1983) 151CLR 422 on equitable mistake, it seems to be generally accepted in Australia as well, that this class of cases requires special mention and consideration. V K Rajah JC. The defendant has expressly pleaded unilateral mistake. MrTan said: As long as we get out [sic] equitable compensation, we should be able to accept lesser terms, but thats just under consideration as well.. In my view this further undermines the essence of the plaintiffs case that they never contemplated that the pricing was a mistake. He was amicus curiae to the Court of Appeal of Singapore in the case of Chwee Kin Keong & Ors v Digilandmall.com Pte Ltd, the leading Singapore case on unilateral mistake in the digital environment. In Chwee Kin Keong v Digilandmall.com Pte Ltd, the Singapore Court of Appeal was asked to consider if the decision in Great Peace Shipping also had the effect of excluding equity's jurisdiction . It would be fair to say that such a person should not have any legitimate expectation that the contract in question will be either respected or sanctioned by court. Consideration was less than executory and non-existent. 4 The defendant is a company that sells information technology (IT) related products over the Internet to consumers. A court is not likely to take a sympathetic view of such manner of amendment. This is clearly a mistake as they could not possible be sold for an amount that in a commercial situation.
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