Chong Jorina v Ritz Property Investimentos Imobiliarios LTDA and another

Chong Jorina sued Ritz Property Investimentos Imobiliarios Ltda and Chong Kwai Leng Helen in Originating Claim No 727 of 2023. Her case was that she advanced loans totalling over $1.6m to the first defendant in reliance on false representations for which Ms Chong Kwai Leng was liable in fraudulent or negligent misrepresentation, with an alternative claim in conspiracy. On 2 June 2026 the court dismissed her claims against Ms Chong Kwai Leng in [2026] SGHC 120: the representations were not made or not attributable to her, no dishonesty was proved, there was no reliance and, for negligence, no duty of care arose. The claimant withdrew the conspiracy claim in her closing submissions. The court relied mainly on the documents, finding both women's oral evidence unsatisfactory in parts.

This judgment fixed the costs of the action on written submissions. The parties agreed that costs should follow the event, agreed disbursements of $20,494.90 and agreed $8,670.60 for two interlocutory applications. Both proposed $50,000 for post-trial costs. They differed on pre-trial and trial costs: the claimant offered $90,000 for both stages, while the defendant sought $220,000. The claimant also asked the court to cut the defendant's costs because of her own settlement efforts and the defendant's conduct.

1. Whether a costs claim exceeding the Appendix G guideline maxima by more than a third amounted to a disguised claim for indemnity costs.
2. Whether the complexity of the case justified departing from the Costs Guidelines for pre-trial, trial and post-trial costs.
3. Whether the defendant should be deprived of part of her costs because of settlement overtures, the quality of her evidence or alleged non-compliance with disclosure orders.

The court rejected the indemnity-costs argument. Standard and indemnity costs differ only in who bears doubts about reasonableness, and the usual one-third uplift is a rule of thumb for that shift. A justified departure from the guidelines still yields standard costs, whatever its size.

The guidelines are a starting point, not a ceiling, and a departure needs justification. A limited departure for pre-trial costs was warranted by the volume of documents, over 16 volumes and about 9,000 pages, a novel question of whether a purely future statement is actionable in negligence, and the conspiracy claim, live until closing. But the case was not factually complex overall, and the original seven-day estimate did not count. The defendant's $110,000 was too high and the claimant's $55,000 too low; the claimant had put her own pre-trial costs at $85,000, and the defendant's work exceeded hers, so $85,000 was fixed. For the five-day trial, the guideline maximum of $16,000 a day was right, with no second departure. The agreed $50,000 post-trial figure was accepted.

The settlement overtures carried no weight: their content was not before the court, and the claimant lost outright. Costs compensate rather than punish, so a reduction under O 21 r 4 of the Rules of Court 2021 needs conduct that unreasonably increased the successful party's costs. Evasive answers as a witness were not conduct of the litigation, and both sides' evidence had been unsatisfactory. The alleged disclosure breaches went to credibility and, if anything, raised the claimant's costs rather than the defendant's.

Vinodh Coomaraswamy J ordered the claimant to pay the defendant costs of $244,165.50, made up of costs of the action fixed on the standard basis at $215,000 ($85,000 pre-trial, $80,000 for trial and $50,000 post-trial), agreed disbursements of $20,494.90 and agreed interlocutory costs of $8,670.60. No reduction was made for either of the claimant's reasons.