Pines club members' appeal against Peter Kwee and Exklusiv Resorts dismissed

Feb 11, 2022



THE appellate division of the High Court has dismissed the appeal by 139 members of The Pines club, who are seeking higher damages against motoring tycoon Peter Kwee's company, Exklusiv Resorts.

Kwee is the director and indirect owner of Exklusiv Resorts, which in turn is the owner of the club.

Justices Belinda Ang, Woo Bih Li and Quentin Loh unanimously ruled that the appeal be dismissed. The appellants were also ordered to pay the respondent S$78,000 in legal costs.

The group had in June last year won a class-action suit against Kwee's company for unilaterally relocating the clubhouse at Stevens Road to a shared site in Tanah Merah.

The plaintiffs had sought damages of more than S$110,000 each and other reliefs, but were awarded a nominal sum of S$1,500 each as the court had ruled that they had not proven the loss they had suffered.

The court dismissed 3 of their claims - for alleged deceit, negligence and negligent misrepresentation - against Exklusiv Resorts. All 4 claims against Kwee, including for alleged breach of contract, were also dismissed.

In August 2021, the members filed a notice of appeal in a bid to overturn Justice Chua Lee Ming's decisions.

The appellants sought damages of around S$28,000 per member, claiming that Kwee's alleged deceit and negligence had lost them the opportunity of filing an injunction to stop the sale of the original clubhouse site to mainboard-listed property developer Oxley Holdings' wholly-owned subsidiary, Oxley Gem.

They argued that, if the injunction had been filed, the members would have been able to hypothetically bargain for this amount to be paid to each of them.

However, Justice Woo noted that the appellants had at no point in the proceedings shown that they would have sought an injunction.

Tan Rajah & Cheah's Chelva Rajah and Shobna Chandran represented the plaintiffs in the appeal, and Rajah & Tann's Vikram Nair represented Kwee and Exklusiv Resorts.