Xiamen Tonghin Furniture Industries Co Pte Ltd v Goh Heng Tee

Facts

Xiamen Tonghin Furniture Industries Co Pte Ltd, a Chinese furniture company, sued Goh Heng Tee, who lives in Singapore, in Originating Claim No 40 of 2025 on a judgment of the Xiamen Intermediate People's Court, and applied for summary judgment in HC/SUM 853/2025. The defendant had been the company's legal representative while its factories in Xiamen were sold in 2013 and 2014. The company claimed he had misappropriated the sale proceeds and obstructed an audit; he denied this. He was removed as legal representative on 8 October 2019.

The company sued him and a finance employee, Ms Xie, in Xiamen in 2019. Process was served on him in Singapore through the Hague Service Convention, by personal service on 30 November 2021, and he was represented by a Chinese lawyer, Mr Bai. The Xiamen court found against him on 30 September 2022, but on his appeal the Fujian Higher People's Court revoked that judgment on 30 October 2023 for unclear facts and remitted the case for retrial. On 23 November 2023 Mr Bai signed a form confirming his own office as the delivery address for the defendant. At the retrial the defendant did not appear; the court held he had transferred company funds to his own account in breach of his duties and, by a judgment of 27 August 2024, ordered him to pay RMB 11,899,536.58 plus interest on RMB 11,801,924.58. His only defence in Singapore was that he was never properly served for the retrial, so the judgment was obtained in breach of natural justice.

Issues

1. Whether it was appropriate for the Singapore court to decide the natural justice challenge when the defendant said he intended to appeal in China.
2. Whether Chinese law required the Xiamen court to serve the retrial papers through the Hague Service Convention.
3. Whether the defendant was properly served with the retrial process, so that he must be taken to have had notice.

Holding

The Assistant Registrar allowed the application and ordered summary judgment against the defendant in the terms sought, save that interest running from 25 October 2019 was to be on RMB 11,801,924.58 only, excluding the preservation and acceptance fees, as the Xiamen judgment itself ordered. Costs were to be heard later.

Reasoning

Following Paulus Tannos v Heince Tombank Simanjuntak and others and another appeal [2020] 2 SLR 1061, the court first asked whether recourse was being pursued in China. Although the defendant said he meant to appeal, nothing showed he had done so; the Xiamen court had certified the judgment effective from 30 September 2024 and issued an execution order. It was therefore appropriate to decide the challenge. Whether natural justice was breached is for the Singapore court, and a defendant served by a method he agreed to cannot complain of lack of actual notice.

The defendant's expert said service abroad had to go through the Convention chain to Singapore's Supreme Court. The court disagreed: the Chinese rules he relied on used the permissive "may" for that route and expressly allowed other methods, including service on a litigation agent and service by mail where the foreign country permits it. In any event the retrial was a continuation of proceedings already served under the Convention, and it would be artificial to require fresh Convention service.

Service was proper. Mr Bai had acted for the defendant throughout and had signed the confirmation naming his office for service after the appeal judgment; his office had apparently accepted the retrial notices and summons, and signed for them. The court also sent the papers by registered mail to the defendant's Singapore home, and the postal records showed each item was received and signed for, which under Singapore law makes postal service valid, unlike the failed delivery in Tannos. Since service was proper both under Chinese law and as a matter of substantial justice, there was no breach of natural justice, and the defendant's claim not to know who signed for the mail went only to actual notice, which did not need deciding.

From the judgment