Part XI: Judgements and Orders
74. Draft orders of Court
75. Unnecessary extraction of orders of Court
76. Judgment in default of appearance or service of defence
77. Consent judgments or orders involving disposition or transfer of property
78. Judgment Interest
Interest rates in default judgments
Post-judgment interest
Interest on costs
Pre-judgment interest
Interest under Order 30, Rule 6(2)
74. Draft orders of Court
(1) Draft orders for inter partes applications
(a) Order 42, Rules 8(1) and (2) of the Rules of Court (Cap. 322, R 5) places the burden of approving the drafts of inter partes judgments and orders on the solicitors themselves. The solicitors should therefore approve the drafts and not submit these drafts to the Registrar for approval.
(b) The Registrar’s signature on a judgment or order is only for the purpose of validity and does not in any way affect the regularity or irregularity of the contents of any judgment or order.
(c) Subject to sub-paragraph (d), parties in inter partes applications should proceed to engross a final copy of the draft judgment for signature by the Registrar after agreeing on the draft. Draft orders of Court for ex parte applications (except probate matters) may be submitted with the summons and the supporting affidavit when these are filed.
(d) For draft orders in electronic form that are composed online through the Electronic Filing Service, the process for extracting judgments and orders shall be as follows:
(i) Parties have the option of filing a system-generated order of court through the Electronic Filing Service.
(ii) Before filing the system-generated order of court, the party extracting the order must review and edit the order of court electronic form to ensure that it accurately reflects the orders made by the Court and obtain the approval of all other parties to the application and provide evidence of such approval when filing the draft order of court, for example, a Portable Document Format (PDF) copy of a draft order of court signed by the solicitors of all parties to the application.
(e) Where parties disagree over one or more terms of the order of court, the party filing the draft order of court shall be responsible for including in the order of court electronic form all versions of the disputed terms by editing the order of court electronic form. All relevant correspondence concerning the dispute must be provided when filing the draft order of court.
(f) The Registry will seal and issue an engrossed order of court once its terms are approved.
(g) Order 42, Rules 8(3) to (5) of the Rules of Court shall continue to apply.
75. Unnecessary extraction of orders of Court
(1) Certain orders are extracted by parties when such orders need not be drawn up under the Rules of Court (Cap. 322, R 5). The attention of solicitors is drawn to Order 42, Rule 9, of the Rules of Court in this regard.
(2) To reduce unnecessary documentation and to expedite proceedings, solicitors are requested not to extract orders that need not be drawn up.
76. Judgment in default of appearance or service of defence
(1) The previous practice of applying for search for appearance and obtaining a certificate of non-appearance before judgment in default of appearance is entered is discontinued.
(2) In writ of summons proceedings where the writ is electronically filed, the procedure for applying for judgment in default of appearance or service of defence will be by way of filing a Request to enter judgment in Form 79A, together with the judgment in Form 79, in Appendix A to the Rules of Court (Cap. 322, R 5). Solicitors’ attention is drawn to Order 13, Rule 7(1) and Order 19, Rule 8A of the Rules of Court.
(3) For Requests to enter judgment electronic forms composed online through the Electronic Filing Service, a signed hard copy of the Request to enter judgment electronic form shall be retained by the solicitor concerned and produced to the Court when required by the Court to do so.
(4) In order to satisfy itself that a defendant is in default of appearance or service of defence, the Court may require an affidavit to be filed stating the time and manner service of the Writ of Summons was effected on the defendant, as well as the steps taken to ascertain that the defendant had failed to enter an appearance or serve a defence, as the case may be.
(5) For the avoidance of doubt, Requests for entry of default judgment shall be filed as a Portable Document Format (PDF) document for suits where the memorandum of service has been filed before 30 September 2013. For all other cases, the Request for entry of default judgment electronic form shall be composed online through the Electronic Filing Service.
77. Consent judgments or orders involving disposition or transfer of property
(1) In any request or application for a consent judgment or order involving any disposition or transfer of property, the parties must provide the following information to the Court:
(a) the identity of the owner of the property subject to disposition or transfer;
(b) whether the owner of the property is incapacitated by reason of insolvency from effecting a disposition or transfer of the property;
(c) whether the property is subject to any encumbrance which would affect a disposition or transfer thereof; and
(d) any other relevant information which ought to be considered by the Court in granting the consent judgment or order.
(2) The Court may require the information referred to in paragraph (1) to be provided by way of an affidavit, which should exhibit the relevant searches where applicable.
78. Judgment Interest
Interest rates in default judgments
(1) The directions set out in paragraphs (2) to (3) below shall be observed when entering judgments in default of appearance or service of defence under Orders 13 and 19 respectively of the Rules of Court (Cap. 322, R 5). (In respect of post-judgment interest under Order 42, Rule 12 of the Rules of Court for such default judgments, please refer to paragraph (4) below).
(2) Non-contractual interest
(a) Pursuant to the Chief Justice’s directions as provided for under Order 13, Rule 1(2) and Order 19, Rule 2(2) of the Rules of Court, the rate of interest shall be 5.33% per annum until further notice.
(b) The period of interest shall be from the date of the writ to the date of the judgment.
(c) The total amount of interest payable need not be specified.
(3) Contractual Interest
(a) For a fixed or constant interest rate —
(i) the rate of interest provided for shall be specified;
(ii) the period of interest shall be as pleaded, except that it shall end on the date of judgment and not on the date of payment; and
(iii) the total amount of interest payable need not be specified.
(b) For a fluctuating interest rate —
(i) there shall be an appendix attached to the judgment in the following form:
Principal sum
$
Period of interest
From … to…
Amount of interest
$
Total amount of interest payable to date of judgment
$
(ii) the period of interest shall be as pleaded, except that it shall end on the date of judgment and not on the date of payment; and
(iii) the total amount of interest payable shall be specified in the judgment.
(c) Evidence of the agreement as to the rate of contractual interest shall be attached to the judgement.
Post-judgment interest
(4) The directions set out in paragraph (5) apply to judgments entered in default of appearance or service of defence under Orders 13 and 19 of the Rules of Court or in default of an order of Court (i.e. an “unless” order or a peremptory order).
(5) Pursuant to the Chief Justice’s directions as provided for under Order 42, Rule 12 of the Rules of Court, unless it has been otherwise agreed between the parties, interest payable after the date of judgment shall be 5.33% per annum until further notice and calculated to the date the judgment is satisfied. The Court retains the discretion under Order 42, Rule 12 of the Rules of Court to revise the default rate of interest to such other rate not exceeding the default rate on the facts of the individual case.
Interest on costs
(6) Pursuant to the Chief Justice’s directions as provided for under Order 59, Rule 37(1) of the Rules of Court, interest payable from the relevant date(s) as stipulated in Order 59, Rule 37(1) shall be 5.33% per annum until further notice and calculated to the date of payment.
Pre-judgment interest
(7) The Chief Justice has directed that solicitors may wish to submit to the Court to consider that the interest rate for the period prior to the date of judgment should be the default interest rate of 5.33% per annum. Solicitors should note that the Court retains the overriding discretion to depart from the default interest rate based on the facts of the individual case.
Interest under Order 30, Rule 6(2)
(8) Pursuant to the Chief Justice’s directions as provided under Order 30, Rule 6(2), the interest ordered by the Court on the sum shown by the receiver’s account as due from him and which the receiver has failed to pay into Court shall be 5.33% per annum until further notice. Interest shall accrue for the period while the sum was in possession of the receiver.
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