L’OREAL & Anor v SHOPEE SINGAPORE PRIVATE LIMITED

Facts

L'Oreal and La Roche-Posay Laboratoire Dermatologique, French companies that said they owned registered trade marks in Singapore, alleged that 18 sellers on the Shopee online platform were offering counterfeit cosmetics under identical or similar signs. To identify the sellers and sue them, they brought Originating Application No 305 of 2024 against Shopee Singapore Private Limited for pre-action production of information. On 27 May 2024 an assistant registrar ordered Shopee to produce each seller's full name or aliases, identification or business registration number, addresses, and email addresses and phone numbers. Shopee answered by affidavit on 24 June 2024.

The brand owners were dissatisfied and filed Summons No 165 of 2025. They said Shopee had given no name or registration number for six sellers, and that their investigators found the information for most sellers to be missing, bogus or unreliable. They sought orders for full compliance; an explanation of whether the data came from Shopee's identity verification process using government-issued documents; an order that Shopee obtain verified, updated identity details from the sellers and report its steps; an order barring Shopee from telling the sellers about the proceedings; and permission, lifting the Riddick undertaking, to tell the Ministry of Home Affairs about any failure by Shopee to verify sellers' identities. Shopee said it had produced everything it held.

Issues

1. Whether principles on the sufficiency of answers to interrogatories under the Rules of Court 2014 apply to production of information under O 11 r 11 of the Rules of Court 2021
2. Whether Shopee had complied with the information production order
3. Whether Shopee should be ordered to explain its records or obtain verified identity information from the sellers
4. Whether the Riddick undertaking should be lifted so the Ministry of Home Affairs could be informed

Holding

Assistant Registrar Chong Ee Hsiun dismissed SUM 165 in its entirety. Shopee was found to have complied with the production order to the best of its knowledge and belief, and the compliance, explanation, further production, ancillary, non-disclosure and notification orders were all refused. Parties were to file costs submissions if they could not agree.

Reasoning

Because possession and control fit documents rather than intangible information, the assistant registrar adapted the plain and obvious test in Lutfi Salim bin Talib and another v British and Malayan Trustees Ltd [2024] 5 SLR 86 and drew on the old law on interrogatories. A respondent must answer from its own knowledge and that of its employees and agents, but need not obtain information from others, and the truth of an answer is not, as a rule, examined when judging its sufficiency. The court's general power under O 3 r 2(2) supplies the power to order a further answer.

Shopee had given addresses, phone numbers and emails for every seller, which substantially advanced the aim of suing them and allowed substituted service. Its statement that it had no records of some names and numbers was conclusive, since verification was rolled out in phases from 16 October 2023 and the sellers had traded since at least August 2023. The investigation reports were not backed by the investigators' own evidence, at least one investigation was incomplete, and none showed the phone numbers or emails to be false.

Requiring Shopee to use its commercial power over sellers to extract information it did not hold would be inordinately intrusive on a non-party, so the further production and ancillary orders failed and the non-disclosure order fell away. On the Riddick undertaking, applying Lim Suk Ling Priscilla and another v Amber Compounding Pharmacy Pte Ltd and another and another appeal and another matter [2020] 2 SLR 912, the asserted public safety risk was not of comparable gravity, the evidence was weak, affected consumers could report harm themselves, and the interest in full disclosure by non-parties outweighed the case for release.

From the judgment