Marina Bay Sands Pte Ltd

On the court record

Illustrates how the reciprocal-enforcement regime treats foreign judgments founded on gambling debts, and the narrow scope allowed for a public-policy defence once registration conditions are met.

Marina Bay Sands Pte Ltd appears in the reported judgments as a foreign entity seeking to register and enforce Singapore judgments in Malaysia, litigating as an applicant in the High Court (Mahkamah Tinggi). Its matters raise, in a cluster of closely related decisions, the recognition of foreign judgments founded on a gambling debt and the public-policy limits on their enforcement.

The connected decisions share a common question: whether a Singapore judgment based on a gambling debt could be registered and enforced in Malaysia under the Reciprocal Enforcement of Judgments Act 1958, and whether enforcement would be contrary to Malaysian public policy. The court considered whether a public-policy objection to enforcement was in substance an attempt to question the merits and propriety of the Singapore judgment, whether the legality of the underlying debt should be raised only in the original court, and whether grounds outside the ambit of section 5 of the Act could be relied upon to resist registration. The reasoning emphasised that the Act rests on the principles of comity and reciprocity, which limit the grounds on which a registered foreign judgment may be challenged.

In one of the matters the court addressed an application to set aside a registered Singapore High Court judgment obtained by the casino under sections 4 and 5 of the Reciprocal Enforcement of Judgments Act 1958, considering whether there had been delay in the application, whether the Singapore judgment was capable of being enforced in Singapore, and whether enforcement in Malaysia would be contrary to public policy, before dismissing the setting-aside application with costs. Across the decisions, the applicant illustrates how the reciprocal-enforcement regime operates in relation to foreign judgments founded on gambling debts, and the narrow scope the courts allow for a public-policy defence once the conditions for registration under the Act are satisfied.