In Wong v Star Entertainment Qld Limited [2021] QCA 277 McMurdo JA states
The appellant, Dr Wong, is a resident of Singapore. In 2018, he travelled to the Gold Coast, where he stayed and gambled at the respondent’s casino. He attended the casino as a participant in what is called, under part 8, division 2 of the Casino Control Act 1982 (Qld), a special junket agreement.
[3] Dr Wong held an account with the respondent (Star) from which he could purchase gaming chips. He requested from Star a cheque cashing facility, to allow him to cash cheques with Star to the extent of $40 million. Star agreed to provide the facility, on terms which were recorded in a written agreement (the facility agreement). A few days later, the limit of this facility was increased, by agreement, to $50 million. Dr Wong provided two cheques drawn in Singapore dollars on a Singapore branch of the Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation, Limited, amounting to the equivalent of $50 million, and that amount was credited to his account with Star. By a week or so later, he had lost most of that sum, such that on Star’s case, he then owed Star $43,209,853.34.
[4] A year earlier, Dr Wong had travelled to Australia and gambled at a casino in Sydney which was operated by a company related to Star. On that trip, he had provided a blank cheque, signed by him but left undated and blank as to the payee and the amount. By a term of the facility agreement made with Star in 2018, it was agreed that if Dr Wong provided “a replacement cheque” to Star with the amount and date incomplete, Star was authorised to complete that cheque in an amount equal to what was outstanding under the facility agreement and to date the cheque. In reliance upon that provision, Star dated and completed the cheque, by inserting the amount of SGD45,145,654.64 and the date of 7 September 2018, and its name as the payee. Star deposited the cheque for payment into its account with the National Australia Bank. By this time, Dr Wong had taken action which resulted in the cheque being dishonoured.
[5] In this proceeding, commenced in 2020, Star claims $43,209,853.22 as damages for breach of the facility agreement, or alternatively, as damages pursuant to s 76 of the Cheques Act 1986 (Cth). Dr Wong applied to have the proceeding summarily dismissed, or permanently stayed, upon several grounds, including that the proceeding was an abuse of process, because it was the third proceeding brought against him by Star upon the same causes of action. In the judgment under appeal, Bradley J dismissed Dr Wong’s application.
The other proceedings between the parties
[6] On 30 January 2019, Star filed a claim and statement of claim in the Trial Division which claimed the same amount as is claimed in the present case. The same causes of actions were pleaded, together with a further case that Dr Wong had falsely represented that the cheque would be met on presentation.
[7] On 1 February 2019, Star commenced a proceeding against Dr Wong in the High Court of Singapore, claiming the same amount and on the same bases.
[8] Dr Wong responded to each of those proceedings on 27 February 2019. He filed a conditional notice of intention to defend the Queensland proceeding, disputing the jurisdiction of the Court to entertain Star’s claim without his consent, and contending that the proceeding was irregular because the claim and statement of claim had not been properly served, and that the proceeding was an abuse of the Court’s process because, at the same time, Star had commenced the Singapore proceeding. Dr Wong filed a defence in the Singapore proceeding, contesting the merits of the claim.
[9] On 12 March 2019, Star discontinued the Queensland proceeding.
[10] On 24 April 2019, Star applied for summary judgment in the Singapore proceeding. Before that application was heard, on 17 May 2019 Dr Wong amended his defence to plead that the action was not maintainable by reason of s 5(2) of the Civil Law Act (Cap 43, 1999 Rev Ed) of Singapore, which provides as follows: “No action shall be brought or maintained in the court for recovering any sum of money or valuable thing alleged to be won upon any wager or which has been deposited in the hands of any person to abide the event on which any wager has been made.” He also filed a cross-application seeking orders that Star’s claim be struck out on the basis that it disclosed no cause of action, or alternatively was a scandalous, frivolous or vexatious claim and an abuse of process, by reason of s 5(2).
[11] On 22 August 2019, a judge of the Singapore International Commercial Court struck out the claim, for the reason that it could not succeed consistently with s 5(2), and it could thereby be characterised as vexatious and an abuse of the process of that court. It was held, applying a decision of the Singapore Court of Appeal, that s 5(2) was a procedural provision which fell to be applied by Singapore courts as part of the law of the forum. There was no consideration of the merits of Star’s claim.
[12] From this summary, it can be seen that Star did commence simultaneous actions against Dr Wong, claiming effectively the same relief. That remained the position for about six weeks before the Queensland proceeding was discontinued, when it had gone no further than the service, or purported service, of the claim and statement of claim, and the conditional notice of intention to defend filed by Dr Wong. Notably, the Queensland proceeding was discontinued about two weeks after Dr Wong filed his original defence in the Singapore proceeding, which did not include the plea in reliance upon s 5(2) of the Singapore statute.
[13] In neither of these earlier cases was there any consideration of the merits. In each, Dr Wong resisted Star’s case being heard on the merits.
Steps in the present proceeding
[14] Star commenced the present proceeding on 19 February 2020.
[15] On 17 August 2020, Dr Wong filed a conditional notice of intention to defend, again disputing the Court’s jurisdiction and contending that the proceeding had not been properly served and that it was an abuse of process.
[16] On 31 August 2020, Dr Wong applied, under Uniform Civil Procedure Rules r 127(2)(c), for dismissal of the proceeding, or alternatively for a stay, on the ground that the claim had insufficient prospects of success. As his case was argued before Bradley J, there were two bases for the orders which he sought. The first was that the prosecution of the proceeding was barred by a res judicata or cause of action estoppel, arising from the dismissal of the Singapore proceeding. The second was that this case was an abuse of the Court’s process. Each argument was rejected and it is only the second which is advanced in this appeal.
