Part IX: Judgments and Orders
75. Draft orders
76. Judgment in default of appearance or service of defence
77. Judgment Interest
Interest rates in default judgments
Post-judgment interest
Interest on costs
Pre-judgment interest
Interest under Order 30, Rule 6(2)
77A. Consent judgments or orders involving disposition or transfer of property
75. Draft orders
(1) Order 42, Rule 8(1) and (2) of the Rules of Court place the burden of approving the drafts of inter partes judgments and orders on the solicitors themselves. The solicitors should therefore approve the drafts and not submit these drafts to the Registrar for approval.
(2) The Registrar’s signature on a judgment or order is only for the purpose of validity and does not in any way affect the regularity or irregularity of the contents of any judgment or order.
(3) Subject to sub-paragraph (4), parties in inter partes applications should proceed to engross a final copy of the draft judgment for signature by the Registrar after agreeing on the draft. Draft orders of Court for ex parte applications may be submitted with the summons and the supporting affidavit when these are filed.
(4) For draft orders in electronic form that are composed online through the Electronic Filing Service, the process for extracting judgments and orders shall be as follows:
(a) Parties have the option of filing a system-generated order of court through the Electronic Filing Service.
(b) Before filing the system-generated order of court, the party extracting the order must:
(i) review and edit the order of court electronic form to ensure that it accurately reflects the orders made by the Court; and
(ii) obtain the approval of all other parties to the application and provide evidence of such approval when filing the draft order of court, for example, a Portable Document Format (PDF) copy of a draft order of court signed by the solicitors of all parties to the application.
(c) Where parties disagree over one or more terms of the order of court, the party filing the draft order of court shall be responsible for including in the order of court electronic form all versions of the disputed terms by editing the order of court electronic form. All relevant correspondence concerning the dispute must be provided when filing the draft order of court.
(d) The Registry will seal and issue an engrossed order of court once its terms are approved.
(5) Order 42, Rule 8(3), (4) and (5) shall continue to apply:
(a) In any case where the solicitors concerned are unable to agree upon the draft, any one of them may obtain an appointment before the Registrar by filing a Request through the Electronic Filing Service, of which notice shall be given to the other, to settle the terms of the judgment or order.
(b) For judgments or orders composed online through the Electronic Filing Service, any solicitor may ask the Registrar to settle the terms of the judgment or order. Such solicitor shall be responsible for including in the draft judgment or order electronic form all versions of the disputed terms by editing the judgment or order electronic form prior to seeking an audience before the Registrar.
(c) Every judgment or order shall be settled by the Registrar, but in the case of a judgment or order made by a Judge, any party may require the matter in dispute to be referred to the Judge for his determination.
(6) Where the other party has no solicitor, the draft shall be submitted to the Registrar.
76. Judgment in default of appearance or service of defence
(1) The previous practice of applying for a search for appearance and obtaining a certificate of non-appearance before judgment in default of appearance is entered is discontinued.
(2) The procedure for applying for judgment in default of appearance or service of defence will be by way of filing a Request to enter judgment in Form 79A together with the judgment in Form 79 of Appendix A to the Rules of Court. Solicitors’ attention is drawn to Order 13, Rule 7(1) and Order 19, Rule 8A of the Rules of Court, which state:
Judgment shall not be entered against a defendant under this Order unless a request to enter judgment in Form 79A is filed with the judgment in Form 79.
(3) For Requests to enter judgment electronic forms composed online through the Electronic Filing Service, a signed hard copy of the Request to enter judgment electronic form shall be retained by the solicitor concerned and produced to the Court when required by the Court to do so.
(4) In order to satisfy itself that a defendant is in default of appearance or service of defence, the Court may require an affidavit to be filed stating the time and manner service of the Writ of Summons was effected on the defendant, as well as the steps taken to ascertain that the defendant had failed to enter an appearance or serve a defence, as the case may be.
(5) For the avoidance of doubt, Requests for entry of default judgment shall be filed as a Portable Document Format (PDF) document for suits where the memorandum of service has been filed before 1 January 2013. For all other cases, the Request for entry of default judgment electronic form shall be composed online through the Electronic Filing Service.
77. Judgment Interest
Interest rates in default judgments
(1) The directions set out in sub-paragraphs (2) to (3) shall be observed when entering judgments in default of appearance or service of defence under Orders 13 and 19 respectively of the Rules of Court. These directions shall apply to such default judgments entered on or after 1 April 2007. (In respect of post-judgment interest for such default judgments under Order 42, Rule 12, please refer to sub-paragraph (4) below).
Non-Contractual Interest
(2) For non-contractual interest:
(a) Pursuant to the Chief Justice’s directions as provided for under Order 13, Rule 1(2) and Order 19, Rule 2(2), the rate of interest shall be 5.33% per annum until further notice.
(b) The period of interest shall be from the date of the writ to the date of the judgment.
(c) The total amount of interest payable need not be specified.
Contractual Interest
(3) For contractual interest:
(a) For fixed or constant rate:
(i) The rate of interest provided for shall be specified.
(ii) The period of interest shall be as pleaded, except that it shall end on the date of judgment and not on the date of payment.
(iii) The total amount of interest payable need not be specified.
(b) For fluctuating rate:
(i) There shall be an appendix attached to the judgment in the following form:
Principal sum
$
Period of interest
From ..... to .....
Amount of interest
$
Total amount of interest payable to date of judgment
$
(ii) The period of interest shall be as pleaded, except that it shall end on the date of judgment and not on the date of payment.
(iii) The total amount of interest payable shall be specified in the judgment.
(c) Evidence of the agreement as to the rate of interest shall be attached to the judgment.
Post-judgment interest
(4) The directions set out in sub-paragraph (5) shall apply to judgments granted on or after 1 April 2007. The directions set out in sub-paragraph (5) shall also apply to judgments entered in default of appearance or service of defence under Orders 13 and 19 or in default of an order of Court (i.e. “unless” or peremptory orders) on or after 1 April 2007. For the avoidance of doubt, judgments granted on the said default judgments entered prior to 1 April 2007 will carry post-judgment interest at the rate of 6% per annum (or such lower rate as the Court has directed, or an agreed rate) for the entire period of accrual of interest.
(5) Pursuant to the Chief Justice’s directions as provided for under Order 42, Rule 12, unless it has been otherwise agreed between the parties, interest payable after the date of judgment shall be 5.33% per annum until further notice and calculated to the date of the judgment is satisfied. The Court retains the discretion under Order 42, Rule 12 to revise the default rate of interest to such other rate not exceeding the default rate on the facts of the individual case.
Interest on costs
(6) The directions set out in sub-paragraph (7) shall apply to costs where the commencement date under Order 59, Rule 37 is on or after 1 April 2007. For the avoidance of doubt, costs with commencement dates which are prior to 1 April 2007 will carry the default interest rate of 6% per annum for the entire period of accrual of interest.
(7) Pursuant to the Chief Justice’s directions as provided for under Order 59, Rule 37(1), interest payable from the relevant date(s) as stipulated in Order 59, Rule 37(1) shall be 5.33% per annum until further notice and calculated to the date of payment.
Pre-judgment interest
(8) The directions set out in sub-paragraph (9) shall apply to awards of interest for the period prior to judgment, such order being made on or after 1 April 2007.
(9) The Chief Justice has directed that solicitors may wish to submit to the Court to consider that the interest rate for the period prior to the date of judgment should be the default interest rate of 5.33% per annum. Solicitors should note that the Court retains the overriding discretion to depart from the default interest rate based on the facts of the individual case.
Interest under Order 30, Rule 6(2)
(10) The directions set out in sub-paragraph (11) shall apply to orders made under Order 30, Rule 6(2) for payment of interest on or after 1 April 2007.
(11) Pursuant to the Chief Justice’s directions as provided under Order 30, Rule 6(2), the interest ordered by the Court on the sum shown by the receiver’s account as due from him and which the receiver has failed to pay into Court shall be 5.33% per annum until further notice. Interest shall accrue for the period which the sum was in possession of the receiver.
77A. Consent judgments or orders involving disposition or transfer of property
(1) In any request or application for a consent judgment or order involving any disposition or transfer of property, parties must provide the following information to the Court:
(a) the owner of the property subject to disposition or transfer;
(b) whether the owner of the property is incapacitated by reason of insolvency from effecting a disposition or transfer of the property;
(c) whether the property is subject to any encumbrances which would affect a disposition or transfer of the property; and
(d) any other relevant information which ought to be disclosed to the Court in granting the consent judgment or order.
(2) The Court may require the information in this paragraph to be provided by way of affidavit, including exhibiting the relevant searches where applicable.
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