George Seah FJ:

This is an appeal from a judgment of the High Court dated 15 July 1983 reversing a decree of the Assistant Registrar directing that summary judgment be entered in favour of the appellant/plaintiff in the sum of S$846,930 with interest and costs under O. 14 of the Rules of the High Court 1980. Before dealing with the merit of the appeal we would like to dispose of a preliminary submission on the rule of practice. In his grounds of judgment the learned Judge seems to take the view that "consideration" ought to be expressly pleaded in the statement of claim. In support of this view learned Counsel for the respondent/defendant relies on a passage appearing in para. 18/12/7 of the "White Book" which reads:

Consideration for any agreement not under seal is a material fact and must be pleaded, except in the case of negotiable instruments where it is presumed.

It was pointed out by learned Counsel for the appellant that no authority binding on this Court has been cited to support this proposition and the comment of the learned authors appears to be contrary to the specimen Court forms contained in Bullen & Leake's Precedents of Pleadings and Atkin's Court Forms, Vol. 12 dealing with the statement of claim.

We have examined the specimen forms of statement of claim based on agreements not under seal in Bullen & Leake's Precedents of Pleadings and Atkin's Court Forms and we are unable to find anything to indicate that "consideration" ought to be pleaded specifically. On the other hand, if the defence is to be based on "no consideration" or "a failure of consideration" then the specimen forms show clearly that such a defence should be expressly pleaded [see O. 18 r. 11].

Now, O. 18 r. 15 of the Rules of the High Court 1980 states that:

15 (1) A statement of claim must state specifically the relief or remedy which the plaintiff claims; but costs need not be specifically claimed.

(2) A statement of claim must not contain any allegation or claim in respect of a cause of action unless that cause of action is mentioned in the writ or arises from facts which are the same as, or include or form part of, facts giving rise to a cause of action so mentioned; but, subject to that, a plaintiff may in his statement of claim alter, modify, or extend any claim made by him in the indorsement of the writ without amending the indorsement.

In our judgment, O. 18 r. 15 does not support the statement contained in para. 18/12 of the "White Book".

A "consideration" is defined by s. 2(d) of the Contracts Act 1950 as "when, at the desire of the promisor, the promisee or any other person has done or abstained from doing, or does or abstains from doing, or promises to do or to abstain from doing, something, such act or abstinence or promise". And "every promise and every set of promises, forming the consideration for each other, is an agreement" [See s. 2(e)]. An agreement enforceable by law is a contract [s. 2(h)]. In our opinion, since "consideration", "agreement" or "contract" have been statutorily defined they cannot be regarded as material facts and therefore need not be specifically pleaded in the statement of claim under O. 18 r. 7(1). For the above reasons, we are unable to agree with the observation of the learned Judge.

We come now to consider the merit of the appeal. It was submitted by learned Counsel for the appellant that the learned Judge in the High Court was wrong to hold that the statement of claim does not disclose an enforceable contract. In so holding, it was contended that the learned Judge was under the misapprehension that "consideration" ought to be specifically pleaded in the statement of claim. We think it appropriate to remind ourselves once again that in every application under O. 14 the first considerations are (a) whether the case comes within the Order and (b) whether the plaintiff has satisfied the preliminary requirements for proceeding under O. 14. For the purposes of an application under O. 14 the prelimi