Chao Hick Tin JC

This is an appeal against two interlocutory orders made by the assistant registrar on 31 October 1988 and 13 January 1989. Under the first order, leave was granted to the first and third defendants to issue certain interrogatories to the plaintiffs. The second order requires the plaintiffs to furnish a further and better list of documents. This is an action for libel on account of a certain letter which the first defendant wrote in his capacity as the managing partner of the second defendant. He is also the managing director of the third defendant. The matter arose out of a news article appearing in a newspaper, the Business Times , of 17 November 1987. In this news article, written by one Alvin Tay, it was reported that 'OCBC plans to recruit four top-ranking bankers' and the names of the four persons were given therein. In the letter written by the first defendant on the subject of maintaining confidentiality in the search for executives, and which was published in the Business Times of 28—29 November 1987, the following words, among others, appeared:

A case of how not to go about attracting top executives was demonstrated in the front page article which ap