HT S.R.L. v Wee Shuo Woon: Legal Privilege, Confidentiality, and Admissibility of Hacked Communications

In HT S.R.L. v Wee Shuo Woon, before the High Court of Singapore on 15 February 2016, the court considered the appeal by Wee Shuo Woon against the decision of the Assistant Registrar to expunge references to certain email communications from Wee's affidavit. The emails, exchanged between HT S.R.L. and its lawyers, were obtained after HT S.R.L.'s computer systems were hacked. The court dismissed the appeal, holding that the emails could still be protected by the law of confidence, and ordered Wee Shuo Woon to pay costs of $5,000 to HT S.R.L.

1. Case Overview

1.1 Court

High Court of the Republic of Singapore

1.2 Outcome

Appeal Dismissed

1.3 Case Type

Civil

1.4 Judgment Type

Grounds of Decision

1.5 Jurisdiction

Singapore

1.6 Description

Italian company HT S.R.L. sued Wee Shuo Woon. The court addressed whether Wee could use privileged communications obtained after HT S.R.L.'s systems were hacked.

1.7 Decision Date

15 February 2016

2. Parties and Outcomes

Party Name	Role	Type	Outcome	Outcome Type	Counsels
HT SRL	Plaintiff	Corporation	Prayer to expunge granted	Won	Adrian Tan of Morgan Lewis Stamford LLC
Wee Shuo Woon	Defendant, Appellant	Individual	Appeal Dismissed	Lost	Nicholas Philip Lazarus of Justicius Law Corporation

3. Judges

Judge Name	Title	Delivered Judgment
Hoo Sheau Peng	Judicial Commissioner	Yes

4. Counsels

Counsel Name	Organization
Adrian Tan	Morgan Lewis Stamford LLC
Nicholas Philip Lazarus	Justicius Law Corporation

4. Facts

HT S.R.L. sued Wee Shuo Woon for breaches of his employment contract.
HT S.R.L.'s computer systems were hacked, and privileged communications were uploaded to the internet.
Wee Shuo Woon accessed the emails and used them to file a striking out application.
The emails contained legal advice and specific information pertaining to the present suit.
The emails contained express provisos that they “contain privileged and confidential information”.
HT S.R.L. sought to expunge references to the emails from Wee Shuo Woon's affidavit and restrain further use.

5. Formal Citations

HT S.R.L. v Wee Shuo Woon, Suit No 489 of 2015(Registrar’s Appeal No 339 of 2015), [2016] SGHC 15

6. Timeline

Date	Event
2015-01-01	Suit No 489 of 2015 filed
2015-01-01	Registrar’s Appeal No 339 of 2015 filed
2015-01-01	Plaintiff’s computer systems were hacked
2015-01-01	Defendant accessed the Emails on the internet
2015-01-01	Defendant filed Summons No 3852 of 2015
2015-01-01	Plaintiff filed Summons No 3990 of 2015
2015-12-21	Hearing date
2016-01-08	Hearing date
2016-02-15	Judgment delivered

7. Legal Issues

Admissibility of Evidence
- Outcome: The court held that the admissibility of evidence is distinct from privilege and that relevant evidence is generally admissible, regardless of how it was obtained.
- Category: Substantive
Legal Professional Privilege
- Outcome: The court held that legal professional privilege protects confidential communications between a client and their lawyer from compulsory disclosure.
- Category: Substantive
Breach of Confidence
- Outcome: The court held that equity can intervene to prevent the unauthorized use of confidential information, even if the information is publicly accessible, if there is still a compelling interest in restraining its use.
- Category: Substantive

8. Remedies Sought

Order to expunge references to emails from affidavit
Injunction to restrain further use of emails

9. Cause of Actions

Breach of Contract
Breach of Confidence

10. Practice Areas

Commercial Litigation
Injunctions

11. Industries

Technology
Legal Services

12. Cited Cases

Case Name	Court	Affirmed	Citation	Jurisdiction	Significance
Law Society of Singapore v Tan Guat Neo Phyllis	High Court	Yes	[2008] 2 SLR(R) 239	Singapore	Cited to support the proposition that common law rules of evidence can be given effect provided they are not inconsistent with the provisions of the Evidence Act or their underlying rationale.
HSBC Trustee (Singapore) Ltd v Lucky Realty Co Pte Ltd	High Court	Yes	[2015] 3 SLR 885	Singapore	Cited to support the proposition that the provisions of the Evidence Act which regulate the admissibility of extrinsic evidence did not apply because the matter was one which had been commenced by originating summons and the evidence was contained solely in affidavits.
Yap Sing Lee v Management Corporation Strata Title Plan No 1267	High Court	Yes	[2011] 2 SLR 998	Singapore	Cited to support the proposition that the common law rules on legal professional privilege apply outside the judicial context.
B and others v Auckland District Law Society and another	Unknown	Yes	[2003] 3 WLR 859	Unknown	Cited for the definition of privilege as a right to resist the compulsory disclosure of information.
Kuruma, Son of Kaniu v The Queen	Unknown	Yes	[1955] 2 WLR 223	Unknown	Cited for the proposition that evidence is admissible if it is relevant to the matters in issue and the court is not concerned with how the evidence was obtained.
Black & Decker Inc v Flymo Ltd	Unknown	Yes	[1991] 1 WLR 753	Unknown	Cited for the proposition that once a document has passed into the hands of the other party the question is no longer one of privilege but of admissibility.
Three Rivers District Council v Bank of England (No 6)	Unknown	Yes	[2004] 3 WLR 1274	Unknown	Cited for the proposition that there can be no privilege without confidentiality.
McGuinness v A-G	Unknown	Yes	(1940) 63 CLR 73	Unknown	Cited for the proposition that no obligation of honour, no duties of non-disclosure arising from the nature of a pursuit or calling, could stand in the way of the imperative necessity of revealing the truth in the witness box.
Calcraft v Guest	English Court of Appeal	Yes	[1898] 1 QB 759	England and Wales	Cited for the proposition that secondary evidence of documents may be admissible into evidence even if the originals were privileged from production.
Lord Ashburton v Pape	Unknown	Yes	[1913] 2 Ch 469	Unknown	Cited for the proposition that the court has equitable jurisdiction to grant an injunction to order the delivery up or to restrain publication or copying of confidential material which had been improperly obtained.
Webster v James Chapman & Co	Unknown	Yes	[1989] 3 All ER 939	Unknown	Cited for the proposition that Calcraft and Lord Ashburton represented two independent and free-standing principles of jurisprudence.
Goddard v Nationwide Building Society	Unknown	Yes	[1986] 3 WLR 734	Unknown	Cited for the synthesis of Calcraft and Lord Ashburton, and the proposition that an injunction is only available before the documents have entered into evidence or otherwise have been relied upon at trial.
Tentat Singapore Pte Ltd v Multiple Granite Pte Ltd and others	High Court	Yes	[2009] 1 SLR(R) 42	Singapore	Cited for the proposition that a party who sought to restrain the use of his privileged and confidential communications had to do so before the evidence is used.
Gelatissimo Ventures (S) Pte Ltd and others v Singapore Flyer Pte Ltd	Unknown	Yes	[2010] 1 SLR 833	Singapore	Cited for the proposition that the critical question was whether the emails in question had been used in any court proceedings or had otherwise been released into the public domain.
Coco v A N Clark (Engineers) Ltd	Unknown	Yes	[1969] RPC 41	Unknown	Cited for the proposition that to say that documents have entered into the “public domain” is to say that they have become “public property and public knowledge”.
Attorney-General v Observer Ltd and others and other appeals	House of Lords	Yes	[1990] 1 AC 109	England and Wales	Cited for the limiting principle that confidentiality only applies to information to the extent that it is confidential.
OBG Ltd and another v Allan and others and other appeals	Unknown	Yes	[2007] 2 WLR 920	Unknown	Cited for the proposition that whether there is still a point in enforcing the obligation of confidence depends on the facts.
Creation Records Ltd and others v News Group Newspapers Ltd	Unknown	Yes	(1997) 39 IPR 1	Unknown	Cited for the proposition that prior publication of photos, though widespread, was no barrier to the grant of the injunction because the plaintiffs were able to establish that the sale of the poster would impair Oasis’s ability to exploit images of the shoot either by way of the sale of an authorised poster of its own or through marketing and merchandising at a later stage.
Harry George Kousouros v Richard O’Halloran and another	English High Court	Yes	[2014] EWHC 2294 (Ch)	England and Wales	Cited for the modern position in England that once a privileged document comes into the hands of an opposing party, the law in relation to breach of confidence comes into play and the Court may intervene in its equitable jurisdiction to prevent an actual or threatened breach of confidence.
ISTIL Group Inc and another v Mohammad Zahoor and others	Unknown	Yes	[2003] EWHC 165 (Ch)	Unknown	Cited for the proposition that where there has been an inadvertent disclosure of a privileged document to a third party, the court should ordinarily intervene unless it is a case where relief can properly be refused on the general principles affecting the grant of a discretionary remedy.
Imerman v Tchenguiz and others	Unknown	Yes	[2011] 2 WLR 592	Unknown	Cited for the approval of the view in ISTIL that where there has been an inadvertent disclosure of a privileged document to a third party, the court should ordinarily intervene unless it is a case where relief can properly be refused on the general principles affecting the grant of a discretionary remedy.
Derby & Co Ltd and others v Weldon and others (No 8)	Unknown	Yes	[1991] 1 WLR 73	Unknown	Cited for the proposition that since the injunction was being sought in aid of privileged material, no weighing of the competing considerations need be called for since the balance between the conflicting policy considerations of truth and privilege had already been struck by the making of the rule on legal professional privilege.
Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken AB (Publ), Singapore Branch v Asia Pacific Breweries (Singapore) Pte Ltd and other appeals	Unknown	Yes	[2007] 2 SLR(R) 367	Singapore	Cited for the raison d’être of legal professional privilege is that full, free, and frank communication between persons and their legal advisors, without which the effective administration of justice would not be possible, can only take place if such communications can be carried out in confidence.

13. Applicable Rules

Rule Name
Order 18 r 19 of the Rules of Court (Cap 322, R 5, 2014 Rev Ed)
Order 41 r 6 of the Rules of Court

14. Applicable Statutes

Statute Name	Jurisdiction
Evidence Act (Cap 97, 1997 Rev Ed)	Singapore
s 128(1) of the Evidence Act	Singapore
s 131(1) of the Evidence Act	Singapore

15. Key Terms and Keywords

15.1 Key Terms

Legal professional privilege
Confidentiality
Admissibility of evidence
Public domain
Breach of confidence
Expunging of affidavit
Hacking
Cybercrime

15.2 Keywords

privilege
confidentiality
evidence
hacking
affidavit
expunge
public domain

17. Areas of Law

Area Name	Relevance Score
Legal Professional Privilege	90
Admissibility of evidence	85
Evidence	80
Civil Practice	75
Privileges	70
Chancery and Equity	70
Remedies	60

16. Subjects

Evidence Law
Civil Procedure
Confidentiality
Privilege