Unilateral Mistake at Common Law and in Equity

• Main Author: LOW, Kelvin Fatt Kin
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2005
• Subjects: Contracts
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/sol_research/743; http://www.i-law.com/ilaw/doc/view.htm?id=130464
• Institution: Singapore Management University

In Chwee Kin Keong v. Digilandmall.com Pte Ltd ,1 one of the defendant’s employees mistakenly uploaded the contents of a training template onto the defendant’s website, resulting in the retail price of S$3,854 for a commercial laser printer on the website being replaced with the figure S$66. Before the error was detected and corrected, some 784 individuals had placed orders for more than 4,000 printers. Amongst these 784 were the six plaintiffs, who between them ordered 1,606 printers. The plaintiffs sought to enforce the contracts when the defendant refused to honour the sales at the mistaken price. The defendant resisted the action primarily on the basis that the price reflected a unilateral mistake on its part of which the plaintiffs were aware.