Choor Singh J:

The plaintiffs are specialist subcontractors in civil engineering and are incorporated in Australia. They specialise in the prestressing and rock anchoring of building structures. The plaintiffs have an office in Singapore. On 24 July 1970 they appointed the defendant as their manager for South-East Asia. On 12 June 1971 the defendant resigned from the service of the plaintiffs. On 16 June 1971 the plaintiffs by an ex parte application obtained an interim injunction against the defendant restraining him from doing any of the following acts until the hearing of a motion for an order that the said injunction do continue until the trial of this action:

(1) utilizing or in any way profiting from the information or knowledge which has been communicated to the defendant by the plaintiffs or obtained by the defendant in the course of his employment with the plaintiffs as the plaintiffs' South-East Asia manager stationed in Singapore;

(2) interfering and intermeddling with the plaintiffs' business or its servants or workmen or agents;

(3) directly or indirectly engaging or concerning himself in and business of the kind carried on by the plaintiffs, within Singapore for a period of one year from date hereof; and

(4) divulging to any person, firm or company or body or persons whomsoever any information concerning the business or the finance of the plaintiffs.

At the hearing of the motion, the Court ordered an early trial of the action under O. 29 r. 5; that the trial be without pleadings and that the interiminjunction do continue until the trial.

Counsel for the plaintiffs has now applied to vary the third part of the injunction to read as follows:

(3) directly or indirectly engaging or concerning himself in any business and employing therein such design or techniques and other processes whatsoever similar to those used by the plaintiffs within Singapore for the period of one year from 16 June 1971.

The evidence shows that the plaintiff company has been in existence in Australia for six years. The plaintiffs are, what may be called specialist subcontractors who work in conjunction with building and civil engineering contractors on projects which include buildings, bridges, dams, walls and foundations. They contract to supply the necessary materials and equipment for the prestressing of structures and also for the execution of their prestressing designs. They also provide some design assistance or aid to consulting engineers and government bodies who do not have detailed knowledge of prestressing design and or knowledge to incorporate the plaintiffs' materials and techniques into their structures. The plaintiffs have a licence from Losinger of Berne, Switzerland for the use of the VSL system for prestressing cables and rock and soil anchors for Australia and South-East Asia. It is said that Losinger has developed and are continually developing prestressing and rock anchoring techniques since 1955 and are considered a world leader in this field. The plaintiffs claim that the multi-strand system is patented and that although certain other aspects of the system are not covered by patent, these materials, techniques and procedures are held in security by them to prevent any competitor gaining this information without having to incur significant development expenses. The plaintiffs admit that the multi-strand system is not registered for South- East Asia.

The defendant who is a professional civil engineer was working in America with TY Lin & Co. and he left them to join the plaintiffs. The plaintiffs admit that the work of TY Lin & Co. is very similar to the design assistance the plaintiffs give to other consulting engineers and authorities but it is said that TY Lin & Co. do not contract to carry out their design. The plaintiffs claim that the defendant was given instruction and access to manufacturing drawings of all their component parts, that he inspected a wide variety of the plaintiffs' job sites and was