Arief Purwada and others v Arianto Purwada and others

Arief Purwada, as administrator of his late parents' estates and in his own right, and his two sisters sued their brother Arianto Purwada and others in Originating Claim No 89 of 2025. Their mother died on 4 September 2022 and their father on 17 February 2023. The claimants alleged that the brother misappropriated assets in bank accounts the parents held jointly, and said he obstructed their efforts to get information from the banks. He maintained that he was the sole beneficial owner of various accounts.

Arief Purwada filed three summonses, HC/SUM 751/2026, HC/SUM 752/2026 and HC/SUM 753/2026, seeking production of documents from non-party banks UBS AG, DBS Bank Limited and Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft, chiefly records of the brother's dealings with the banks. Separately, the brother appealed in HC/RA 170/2026 against nine production orders an assistant registrar had made against him in HC/SUM 1088/2026, which largely mirrored the requests against the banks.

1. Whether O 11 r 11 of the Rules of Court 2021 allows production of customer information by a bank where no Banking Act exception, such as the bankers' books exception, applies
2. Whether the documents sought were customer information and, if so, whether they were bankers' books whose production should be ordered
3. Whether the assistant registrar erred in finding the documents sought from the brother material

The court held that s 47 of the Banking Act 1970 is the exclusive regime for banking secrecy, following Susilawati v American Express Bank Ltd [2009] 2 SLR(R) 737. O 11 r 11(2) bars production that cannot be compelled in law, so the rule cannot be used to bypass the Third Schedule. It declined to treat Goh Seng Heng v Liberty Sky Investments Ltd [2017] 2 SLR 1113 as deciding otherwise, since that case did not consider the bankers' books exception. The framework is: first ask whether the material is customer information; if not, apply O 11 r 11 on materiality and the interests of justice; if so, an exception must apply, and for the bankers' books exception the three-step test in Ong Jane Rebecca v Lim Lie Hoa [2023] 5 SLR 656 must be met.

Applying this, requests about accounts held only by the parents raised no secrecy issue or fell within the exception for a deceased customer's personal representative, and were granted. Where the brother was a joint holder, only documents recording or effecting transfers of assets counted as bankers' books; records about opening, closing or freezing accounts did not, and voice logs or call notes that were not properly sorted and filed were not books at all. Communications with the banks about notices of the parents' deaths were not customer information and were ordered because they bore on the pleaded obstruction.

On the appeal, banking secrecy does not limit discovery against a party. The documents were material to the pleaded issues of wrongful transfers and obstruction, and the brother's claim to beneficial ownership did not detract from that.

The High Court allowed the three summonses in part, ordering each bank within 28 days to list and produce defined categories of documents set out in an annex, and dismissed the brother's registrar's appeal in its entirety. The banks were allowed costs of the applications at S$18,000 plus S$2,718.30 disbursements for UBS, S$15,000 for DBS and S$21,000 for Deutsche Bank, with compliance costs to be agreed or taxed.