See Jen Sen (Xue Rensheng) v Prudential Assurance Company Singapore (Pte) Ltd

Case Significance

See Jen Sen (Xue Rensheng) v Prudential Assurance Company Singapore (Pte) Ltd [2024] SGHC 76 was decided by the General Division of the High Court of Singapore on 18 March 2024, in Originating Claim No 466 of 2023 (Registrar's Appeal No 32 of 2024), with judgment reserved by Choo Han Teck J after a hearing on 13 March 2024. The claimant, See Jen Sen (Xue Rensheng), was an agent of the defendant, Prudential Assurance Company Singapore (Pte) Ltd, which carries on business as insurers. He held the rank of "agency leader" within the defendant's network of agents and had worked for it for 19 years before his agency agreement was terminated in March 2022. He sued the defendant for wrongful termination, unjust enrichment (the "UE claim") and a claim under the Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977 (the "UCTA claim"). The defendant applied to strike out the claim in its entirety, but the Assistant Registrar struck out only the UE claim and the UCTA claim, and the matter before the court was the claimant's appeal against the Assistant Registrar's orders. According to the judgment, the defendant maintained that the termination was lawful: clause 13(c) of the agency agreement allowed either party to terminate on notice, and the agreement was terminated on 21 March 2022 after the claimant had been the subject of an inquiry by a compliance committee. The catchwords record that the case concerned the striking out of pleadings. The claimant was represented by Ragbir Singh s/o Ram Singh Bajwa of Bajwa & Co, with the defendant represented by Joleen Wong Ying of JWS Asia Law Corporation.