HU YINAN V PEH CHIN HUA & 2 ORS

Facts

Mr Hu Yinan sued Peh Chin Hua, White Group Pte Ltd and a third defendant in Originating Claim No 150 of 2025 for misrepresentation, conspiracy, breach of trust and unjust enrichment arising from a share lending arrangement. Two document disputes reached Chua Lee Ming J on appeal from an Assistant Registrar.

In HC/RA 1/2026 the first and second defendants appealed against an order that they produce three categories of documents; Mr Hu said he was entitled to two of them simply because they related to facts pleaded in their defence. In HC/RA 2/2026 Mr Hu appealed against an order that he allow inspection of the originals of everything falling within three classes in his second list of documents, described as Weixin messages with the third defendant and others. His solicitors' covering letter had enclosed only extracts and said those were the only documents being produced.

Issues

1. Whether a party is entitled to production of documents merely because they relate to facts pleaded in the other side's defence.
2. Whether the scope of documents produced under the Rules of Court 2021 is fixed by the list alone or by the list read with the copies served with it.
3. How inspection of Weixin messages held on phones in China should be carried out.

Holding

The court allowed RA 1 in part, setting aside production of the first two categories and replacing the order on the narrowed third category with an order that the defendants file an affidavit in response. It allowed RA 2, limiting inspection to the originals of the messages actually provided, and directed Mr Hu to have lawyers in China verify them by affidavit within four weeks. Each party bore its own costs.

Reasoning

On RA 1, O 11 r 3(1)(b) requires the requesting party to show that the documents are material to the issues in the case. Not every pleaded fact raises an issue; the documents must bear significantly on a matter that could affect the outcome. The facts in question were not disputed, so the first two categories were refused. The third category, once narrowed, was material, but because the defendants disputed that such documents existed, an affidavit in response was ordered instead.

On RA 2, the judge noted that Mr Hu could have described his classes more precisely, but his position in the covering letter was clear and could not be ignored. Unlike the 2014 rules, O 11 r 2 of the 2021 rules makes production a matter of exchanging both a list and copies of the listed documents, so the copies served with the list fix what was produced. The judge rejected Mr Hu's narrower reading that only documents already produced could be inspected; inspection under O 11 r 12 extends to documents identified in the list, but here those were the extracts supplied. As the messages could not be exported in native format and the devices were in China, handing over account details was inappropriate and flying to Singapore unnecessary, so verification by Chinese lawyers was ordered.

From the judgment