About the project

The Singapore Academy of Law’s Law Reform Committee comprehensively examined the question of interest awarded by the courts, in particular, issues of pre-judgment interest, post-judgment interest generally, post-judgment interest in respect of foreign currency, and interest running on foreign judgments and arbitral awards.

The Committee made the following recommendations, among others:

• In the interest of the expeditious administration of justice, in general pre-judgment interest should be a matter of discretion for the courts and should not be available as a matter of right. Situations where such interest is a matter of right should be left to incremental judicial development.
• The statutory provisions relating to the awarding of interest should be clarified, and existing provisions on the general power of the courts to award interest for late payment or non-payment of debts, damages or other sums found due upon the taking of accounts should be consolidated into a single provision.
• A system should be implemented for setting the general rate of interest, from which the courts may in their discretion depart when circumstances so justify.
• The courts should generally award compound interest by default, but should have power to award simple interest if they consider that to be more appropriate in the circumstances.
• The current law and practice of awarding pre-judgment interest at a rate appropriate to the currency of the loss or gain is correct, but the law should be amended to enable the courts to award post-judgment interest at a rate consonant with the prevailing economic realities of the currency of the loss or gain. This may require the rate to be higher than the default rate which is computed on the basis of the local economy.
• Unless it is an exceptional case, when a foreign judgment is registered for enforcement in Singapore, it should carry interest at the rate, if any, applicable to the judgment by the law of the place where it was given.

Project status: Completed

• The report was published in August 2005.
• The High Court cited the report in Lalwani Ashok Bherumal v Lalwani Shalini Gobind [2019] SGHC 1 at paragraph 48.

Areas of law

◾ Civil procedure

Click on the image above to view the report

Last updated 7 June 2019