Commercial and Civil Disputes Resolution

What commercial and civil disputes does Christopher Bridges Law Corporation handle?

We specialise in a wide range of commercial and civil disputes. Our Team can and has represented a wide range of Clients in many different matters including:

1. Breach of contractual terms
2. Bankruptcy and insolvency
3. Unpaid monies under personal loans, instalment plans and investment schemes
4. Failure to deliver a certain quality of goods and services agreed
5. Defamation and harassment
6. Personal injury, property damage and workplace accidents
7. Negligence and misrepresentation
8. MCST and HDB related disputes
9. Landlord and tenant disputes
10. Employer – employee relationship disputes
11. Engineering and construction disputes
12. Trust, estate and probate disputes
13. Partnership disagreements

Our Methods

At Christopher Bridges Law Corporation, we recognise that every matter is unique and it is not so much a cookie cutter approach to every problem that will resolve it well, but the skill full application of our experience with the multitude of tools on hand to the problem.

Where debt recovery is concerned, you can trust us to provide a smooth process that avoids conflicts, harassment, or any damage to our Client’s reputation. In the event legal action is required, we ensure that you do not just obtain a court judgement on paper but secure actual payment of the debt from your debtor.

As part of our scope of work, we review all your documents which are relevant to the matter. This typically includes:

1. Correspondence (Emails and WhatsApp)
2. Contracts and agreements
3. Invoices and purchase orders
4. In the event proceedings have already been commenced, perhaps the Statement of Claim

We then advise you whether you have a strong or defensible case and the legal remedies which you can ask for, which includes:

1. Specific performance (forcing the other party to transfer shares to you for example)
2. Injunction (forcing the other party to do something or stop doing something)
3. Pay you damages and interest thereon for defective goods and services

We break down all the claims made against you or the legal basis for your claim and then lay out all the possible ways you can proceed in order to obtain these remedies which you seek.

Our Duties

It is our duty to guide you on how you are required to go about proving and substantiating your case. If you are the Defendant, we will highlight for you:

1. Defences under common law or pursuant to an applicable statute
2. Allegations made against you which are unsustainable or factually wrong
3. Allegations which are not supported by any evidence
4. A counterclaim which you may have against the other Party

1. Negotiation and Settlement

Negotiation typically involves without prejudice discussions between Parties. This is the first port of call and at Christopher Bridges Law Corporation, we always start with a letter to the other Party, setting out your position and your demands or your response to their demands. These discussions are made without prejudice and what this means is that the other Party will not be able to adduce it in Court and rely on it to argue that you have admitted to their demands or conversely, that they have sufficiently disputed your demands, so you can be candid with the other Party.

We aim to be as comprehensive and detailed in our letter as possible, as it sets the tone going forward and provides clarity to all parties, what your point of view is and where you are coming from. This clearly places the other Party on notice of strengths of your case early on in the dispute and discourages any escalation.

If Parties are able to reach an agreement on how to move forward, we then draft a settlement agreement which will clearly set out:

1. What each Party is to do going forward
2. What one Party is to pay and when
3. The claims that the other Party is compromising or giving up when payment is made
4. In the event a suit in Court has already been initiated, when the Claimant is supposed to discontinue the matter
5. Whether the terms of the settlement and the fact that Parties had a dispute and entered into a settlement should be private and confidential and should not be disclosed

2. Mediation

In the event negotiations fail and Parties are unable to resolve the dispute themselves, but still wish to resolve the dispute amicably, we are able to assist Parties in attempting to have the matter mediated before a third party, called a mediator.

This process aims to have Parties arrive at a mutually agreeable outcome with the help of the mediator, who is often a person of suitable standing and experience vis a vis the matter in dispute. The neutral mediator will help both Parties see the strengths and weaknesses of their case, as well as counsel Parties of the flaws in their views or demands.

There are a number of institutes in Singapore which provide mediation including:

1. The Law Society
2. Singapore Mediation Centre

In the event Court proceedings have already commenced, Parties may request for the Court to direct them to attend mediation, where the mediator is also typically a Judge.

Our Team regularly assists Clients in mediation, including:

1. Preparing case briefs for the mediator and the other Party
2. Drafting proposals
3. Drafting settlement agreements and advising you on its enforceability and what you will have to do in the event the other Party breaches the terms of settlement (for example, the other Party fails to pay a certain instalment)
4. Advocating your cause to the mediator

Our Team of lawyers are well-spoken and articulate. We reason based on legal precedent and explain why you should be entitled to the remedies you seek based on prior rulings. This helps to give the mediator a clear understanding of your case and helps tremendously in shifting the outcome in your favour.

There are many benefits of attending mediation. We typically advise that our Clients attempt mediation at least once, to give early settlement a chance, no matter how strong Parties may feel about the matter. In many cases, Clients end up settling after a half or full day mediation, obviating the need to spend months more in a prolonged legal battle, going to trial, increasing acrimony and legal costs.

3. Arbitration

In the event where the other Party is unable to see reason and there is no choice but to have a third party decide who is right and who is wrong, arbitration may also be a possibility.

At Christopher Bridges Law Corporation, we advise you very early on in the dispute, which is the final arbiter of your matter in the event Parties are unable to work out the dispute. This may be by for example, Arbitration or Litigation. Very often, this is not a choice and Parties are bound by what had been stated and agreed before the dispute arose. We have seen many cases where a Party attempts to initiate an action in Court, only to have the other Party resist it on the basis that there was an arbitration clause.

The benefit of arbitration is that it is more flexible than litigation. Parties have more say over how they wish the dispute to be heard and conducted. For example, Parties are typically free to appoint their own arbitrator and choose what are the procedures and rules which should apply.

Further, arbitration is typically also confidential and the results cannot be disclosed unless Parties themselves agree to do so. This would benefit Clients who wish to remain out of the spotlight or where the dispute involves commercial secrets.

There are a number of institutes in Singapore which provide arbitration including:

1. Singapore International Arbitration Centre
2. Singapore International Commercial Court

Our Team regularly assists Clients in arbitration, including:

1. Preparing case briefs for the arbitrator and the other Party
2. Drafting proposals
3. Where Parties settle halfway through arbitration, we draft settlement agreements and avise you on its enforceability and what you will have to do in the event the other Party breaches the terms of settlement (for example, the other Party fails to pay a certain instalment)
4. Drafting submissions for the arbitration

4. Litigation

If Litigation was what Parties had chose to resort to prior to the dispute arising, or their contract did not stipulate that an alternative mode of dispute resolution must be resorted to, then a claim in Court may be commenced.

This typically starts with us asking the other Party’s lawyers if they have instructions to accept service of Court documents on behalf of their Client. We then draft the Statement of Claim, clear it with you, file it in Court and serve it on the other Party’s lawyers. If you are the other Party, we discuss the Statement of Claim with you and draft your Defence and even your Counterclaim against the other Party if you also have a case against them.

Before the matter proceeds to trial, we advise you on interlocutory matters and make interlocutory applications on your behalf. These interlocutory applications are not trivial and very often make or break a case. They include:

1. The Statement of Claim filed against you may have been vaguely drafted, prejudicing you because you do not know what the case against you is. In such a case, we may advise you to seek further and better particulars.
2. The Defendant filed a Defence but did not disclose the documents he is relying on in support. In such a case, we may advise you to seek an order for production of documents on the basis that these are relevant documents in the Defendant’s possession, custody or power.
3. Where a Party fails to file its Notice of Intention to Contest or its Defence, apply for default Judgment in your favour.
4. Where the Party’s claim is simply an abuse of process and has no reasonable cause of action, apply to strike out the claim.
5. Where the Defence filed discloses no real Defence to the claim, apply for summary judgment
6. Asking for the other Party to put down security for your costs of either pursuing them or responding to a claim

After all interlocutory matters are resolved, we move on to pre-trial preparation. Here, we do at least the following for our Clients:

1. Advise our Clients whether they need an expert to opine on the matter and if so, whether this expert should be a joint expert
2. What are the issues the joint expert should opine on and how his fees are to be settled
3. Drafting Client’s and their witnesses’ statements, setting out what they wish to tell the Court and the evidence they will be referring to at trial (Affidavit of Evidence in Chief)
4. Preparing questions for examination of the Client and their witnesses on the stand in the witness box and questions for cross-examination of the other Party and their witnesses
5. Preparing and filing bundles of documents and opening statements

At trial, we execute your trial strategy, to help the Judge understand your case and make a decision based on the evidence which you have provided and the law which is applicable.

After trial, we assist to extract Judgment and move on to advise you on enforcement proceedings, so that you do not end up with just a Judgment on paper but enjoy the fruits of litigation and your effort in pursuing the other Party or conversely, defending against the other Party. Enforcement proceedings may include the following:

1. Attachment proceedings. In the event you know what monetary assets the other Party has, we can make an application to seize those funds.
2. Sale and seizure of property. In the event there are assets which belong to the enforcement respondent at their registered address, we can make an application for those to be seized and sold.
3. Where there is no information on what assets the other Party has and they refuse to comply with the Judgment, we can take up  enforcement respondent proceedings, which will compel the other party to come forward to disclose what are all the assets which they have.

In the event the other Party remains unresponsive, we may advise you to take up a committal application against the person or if it is a company, its director, to commit them to jail, for repeatedly failing to comply with the orders of the Court.

The conduct of litigation is strictly governed by amongst others, the Rules of Court 2021. Parties are expected to comply with the same failing which default judgment or costs may be ordered against them. Small matters of non-compliance can often become big matters and have a substantive effect on the case rather than remain merely procedural. At Christopher Bridges Law Corporation, we take responsibility for complying with all the relevant Court directions and ensuring that where timelines are involved, you do not miss them.

Christopher Bridges Law Corporation

We are a commercial and criminal litigation law firm licensed to practise in Singapore, with affiliated offices within Asia. We have developed a very close working relationship with our Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) partners with whom we have been working with since 1995.