Spacesats Pte. Ltd. v Chan Chia Sern and others

SpaceSATS Pte Ltd, a joint venture to develop micro plasma thrusters for small satellites, sued its former chief executive Dr Chan Chia Sern, his company Plasma Innovation Labs Pte Ltd (PILS) and four scientists in Suit No 349 of 2020, alleging breaches of agreements to keep information confidential and surrender intellectual property and work product. Its forensic investigators found that data had been copied from company laptops onto external storage devices and then deleted.

On 12 July 2021, on summary judgment, the court ordered Dr Chan within seven days to deliver up personal laptops and listed external storage devices, to transfer administration of the company's Vodien email and web hosting account to its director Mr Goh Wei Jie, and to add Mr Goh and the company secretary as CorpPass administrators. PILS was ordered to deliver up the other defendants' laptops and devices. The order was extracted on 27 July 2021 and served, with a penal notice, on 28 July 2021, after the deadline had passed. SpaceSATS applied by Summons No 5179 of 2021 to commit Dr Chan for contempt, personally and as sole director of PILS. By the last hearing his counsel accepted that full compliance had still not been achieved.

1. Whether the court should dispense with service of the order, which was served only after the time for compliance had expired.
2. Whether Dr Chan intentionally breached the orders on delivery up, the Vodien account and the CorpPass account, personally and as director of PILS.
3. What sentence was appropriate for the contempt.

Under s 4(1) of the Administration of Justice (Protection) Act 2016, the contemnor need only have intended the conduct and known the facts making it a breach, and liability must be proved beyond reasonable doubt. Service before the deadline had not occurred, but the judge held it just to dispense with it. Dr Chan had been warned by the court months earlier to preserve and collect the devices, his solicitors had proposed the seven-day timeline, and the delay in extracting the order lay largely with his own side; he accepted he knew what the order required.

Only some laptops and devices were produced, mostly late. Nine listed devices remained outstanding, and a scientist's claim to own no laptop surfaced only after the order and was found belated and unbelievable. The obligations were not framed as best endeavours, so practical difficulty was no excuse. The Vodien account was never transferred and expired, with its data now lost; the judge rejected the excuses offered and inferred that the inaction was deliberate. Mr Goh was made a CorpPass administrator only in January 2022.

On sentence, the judge applied Sembcorp Marine Ltd v Aurol Anthony Sabastian [2013] 1 SLR 245 and the factors in Mok Kah Hong v Zheng Zhuan Yao [2016] 3 SLR 1. Aggravating features were the continuing and patchy non-compliance, the nonchalant attitude and the apparently deliberate lapse of the Vodien account, together with serious prejudice to the company's case and business. Both punitive and coercive aims supported imprisonment. Drawing on Brightex, and treating Dr Chan as less culpable than the contemnors in Technigroup, who had positively deceived the court, two months was appropriate. The CorpPass delay caused no shown prejudice, so a fine sufficed.

S Mohan J dispensed with service and found Dr Chan in contempt for intentionally disobeying paragraphs 1, 9 and 10 of the order personally, and paragraph 2 as sole director of PILS. He sentenced Dr Chan to two months' imprisonment for the breaches on delivery up and the Vodien account, imposed a $2,000 fine for the CorpPass breach, ordered him to surrender his passport and report to begin his sentence, and fixed costs of the leave and committal applications at $15,000.