The discretion to allow withdrawal of a suit is contingent upon the stage of proceedings and the advantages gained by the defendant; the court will not readily deprive the defendant of any advantage achieved.

(Enclosure 20)

A. Introduction

[1] The Plaintiff seeks to withdraw this claim with liberty to file afresh in accordance with O 21 r 3 of the Rules of Court .

[2] After considering the chronology of this case and the fact that the case has not been set down for trial and the merits have not been considered by this Court, I find that the Plaintiff should be allowed to withdraw this claim subject to payment of costs to the Defendants and that it should be given liberty to refile the claim if it wishes to do so. Costs as ordered by this Court must be paid in full to the Defendants before any new suit could be filed by the Plaintiff.

B. Chronology

[3] I lay down the important chronology of events concerning the progress of this file before this Court:

(i) The Plaintiff files its Writ of Summons and Statement of Claim (Encls 1 and 2) - 7 February 2024

(ii) The Defendants file their Statement of Defence (Encl 5). -29 February 2024

(iii) The Plaintiff files the Plaintiff's Amended Statement of Claim (Encl 6) - 13 March 2024.

(iv) The Defendants file the Defendants' Application to object to the Plaintiff's Amended Statement of Claim (Encl 8). - 22 March 2024.

(v) The Court allows the Defendants' Application to object to the Plaintiff's Amended Statement of Claim, ie, the Plaintiff's Amended Statement of Claim is disallowed (Encl 24) 18 September 2024.

(vi) The Plaintiff files this Application to withdraw their suit against the Defendants with liberty to file afresh (Encl 20). 25 September 2024.

(vii) The Plaintiff files an appeal to the Court of Appeal against the Court's decision dated 18 September 2024 in regard to the disallowing of thePlaintiff's Amended Statement of Claim (Encl 26) 17 October 2024.

[4] The Defendants do not agree with the application filed by the Plaintiff. They believe that the application is an abuse of process ands hould not be allowed, or at the very least, the suit should be discontinued without liberty to file afresh. The arguments put forth to support their position are as follows:

(i) The Plaintiff is merely trying to improve its case against the Defendants. Despite not being allowed to amend its Statement of Claim, it now wishes to withdraw the claim with liberty and then file a new suit against the Defendants for the same claim but with an improved Statement of Claim.

(ii) The Defendants are put at a disadvantage as their defence has been fully disclosed to the Plaintiff, and they could change the particulars of their claim against them in a new suit.

(iii) The withdrawal of this suit is a tactic utilized to improve the Plaintiff's claim in a new suit.

(iv) The Defendants are willing and able to have the trial fixed and heard on its merits.

C. Decision Of This Court

[5] I must first consider the factors that have been identified by our Superior Courts when dealing with an application to withdraw a suit under O 21 r 3 of the Rules of Court .

[6] The leading case in this area is the decision of Raja Azlan Shah J (as he then was) in Overseas Union Finance Ltd v. Lim Joo Chong 1971 MarsdenLR 16 ; 1971 MarsdenLR 253 , where he laid down the guidelines that must be considered by a Judge when dealing with such an application:

"However, it is at my discretion whether I should allow discontinuance.Guidelines to the discretion can be found in the Annual Practice 1963 at page 593 under the heading Before Judgment which reads:

"Leave may be refused to a plaintiff to discontinue the action if the plaintiff is not wholly dominus litis or if the defendant has by the proceedings obtained an advantage of which it does not seem just to deprive him."

If the