[2007] 1 SLR(R) 629 - Singapore Law

660 SINGAPORE LAW REPORTS (REISSUE) [2007] 1 SLR(R)
Ordinance of 1909 (SS Ord No VIII of 1909), and as s 4(8) of the Civil Law
Ordinance of 1926 (SS Ord No 111, vol 3, 1926 Ed). It then read:
A mandamus or an injunction may be granted or a receiver appointed
by an interlocutory order of the Court, either unconditionally or upon
such terms and conditions as the Court thinks just, in all cases in which
it appears to the Court to be just or convenient that such order should
be made.
This section remained unchanged until 2005 when the expression
“mandamus” was replaced by the expression “mandatory order”, and the
section renumbered as s 4(10). This provision gives power to the court to
grant only interlocutory injunctions. The power to grant final injunctions is
found in para 14 of the First Schedule to the SCJA.
65 There were no legal developments affecting the court’s power under
s 4(10) until the early 1980s when, in line with the decisions of English
courts under the equivalent English provision, our courts invoked s 4(10) as
the statutory source of power to grant Mareva injunctions in court
proceedings: see Art Trend Ltd v Blue Dolphin (Pte) Ltd ([29] supra) at [27],
where Lai Kew Chai J said:
Mareva injunctions have been issued by the High Court in Singapore
for some years now. They have been issued under s 4(8) of the Civil
Law Act (Cap 30). The subsection in terms are equivalent to the former
s 45 of the English Supreme Court of Judicature (Consolidation) Act
1925, since replaced and expanded. The latter provision was the basis
on which an injunction, later known by the sobriquet Mareva
injunction, was for the first time granted in England in May 1975: see
Colin Ying, “The Mareva Injunction and Pre-trial Attachment” [1981]
2 MLJ cvii.
In that passage, Lai J noted the correspondence between the Singapore and
the English provisions (the latter having been authoritatively interpreted in
The Siskina ([4] supra)). In his article referred to in the quotation above,
Colin Ying has argued that s 4(10) allowed a Singapore court to grant
Mareva injunctions but subject to the prerequisites laid down by
Lord Diplock in The Siskina. One such requisite is that the court must have
jurisdiction over the substantive claim.
Karaha Bodas Co LLC v Pertamina Energy Trading Ltd
66 In Karaha Bodas ([4] supra), this court applied the principle in The
Siskina that a court had no power to grant Mareva interlocutory relief
unless the defendant was “amenable to the jurisdiction of the court” in
respect of a substantive cause of action. In that case, the appellants had
obtained an arbitral award in Hong Kong against the respondents’ holding
company (“Pertamina”), an Indonesian company. The appellants obtained
a garnishee order against the respondents (“Petral”), a Hong Kong
company, attaching the debts owing by Petral to Pertamina. The appellants