RESORTS WORLD AT SENTOSA PTE LTD

On the court record

A foreign judgment creditor enforcing a Singapore judgment in Malaysia by bankruptcy, testing whether the court may go behind a judgment registered under REJA 1958 for a gambling debt, and the rigour of substituted service.

Resorts World at Sentosa Pte Ltd, a Singapore company, appears in the corpus as a judgment creditor and applicant enforcing a foreign judgment in Malaysia through bankruptcy proceedings, in litigation dominated by the mechanics of the Reciprocal Enforcement of Judgments Act 1958 and the public-policy limits on enforcing a gambling-related debt. The matters are before the High Court.

The core question is how far the Malaysian bankruptcy court may look behind a registered foreign judgment. A creditor's petition was founded on a Singapore judgment registered under the Reciprocal Enforcement of Judgments Act 1958, and the court considered whether the bankruptcy court may go behind that registered judgment where the underlying debt arose from a gambling-related credit facility — whether the facility was a composite gambling contract, or merely a guise to circumvent restrictions, so as to engage public policy. Related proceedings addressed public policy under the Act and the principle of international comity and reciprocity, and whether an earlier setting-aside decision had been reached per incuriam, together with a prayer for an extension of time to apply to set aside the registration of the Singapore judgment.

Much of the litigation turned on service. In more than one matter the court examined the validity of substituted service of a bankruptcy notice or petition — whether personal service was impracticable, and whether there had been compliance with section 6(1A) and (1B) of the Insolvency Act 1967 and rules 108 to 110 of the Insolvency Rules 2017, along with the requirements of due diligence and full and frank disclosure on an ex parte application, and the interpretation of a contractual service-address clause. The company's footprint is a compact study in cross-border enforcement: the registration of a foreign judgment, the public-policy scrutiny of a gambling debt, and the procedural rigour demanded before a debtor may be served and adjudged bankrupt.