The apex court has largely overturned the High Court's previous ruling that three Workers' Party (WP) leaders are liable for damages suffered by Aljunied-Hougang Town Council (AHTC) and Pasir Ris-Punggol Town Council (PRPTC), finding instead that they had largely acted in good faith.

But it found that WP chair Sylvia Lim, in particular, was liable for negligence in not renewing contracts for two engineering firms and instead awarding the contract to a different company.

In an appeal decision published on Wednesday (Nov 9), the Court of Appeal found that the town councillors and employees had all acted in good faith when they awarded the management agency contract to FM Solutions & Services without a tender.

They had also acted in good faith when contracting third-party contractors LST Architects, Titan and J Keart.

But they had not acted in good faith for being negligent on the payment process to their management agent, the apex court found.

"It bears emphasising that this judgment is confined to the narrow legal issue of the intersection between public law and private law duties, and specifically whether AHTC’s members and senior employees – the Town Councillors and Employees – owed private law duties to AHTC in the execution of their public law statutory duties," the court said in its judgement.

"This judgment does not seek to pass judgment on the competence or desirability of the Town Councillors’ and the Employees’ actions. The question is whether the town councillors’ and the employees’ actions were done in good faith and in the execution of the Town Council Act."

Source:
courtesy of TODAY

by DARYL CHOO

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