Oakwell Engineering V. Enernorth Industries

Oakwell Engineering v. Enernorth Industries (Canada, Court of Appeal File No. C43898, Superior Court File Nos. 04-CV-271121CM3 & 04-CV-274860 CM2) was an appeal by Enernorth Industries Inc. (Enernorth), a Canadian company, from a judgment granting an application brought by Oakwell Engineering Limited (Oakwell), a Singaporean company, for an order recognizing and enforcing in Ontario a judgment granted against Enernorth by the High Court of the Republic of Singapore on October 16, 2003 and affirmed by the Court of Appeal of the Republic of Singapore on April 27, 2004.

The case is notable because Enernorth claimed that the Singapore judgment should not be recognized in Canada because judicial standards in Singapore were not the same as those in Canada. Among other things, Enernorth alleged that links between the judiciary, business and the executive arm in Singapore suggested a real risk of bias.

If Enernorth's appeal to the Ontario Court of Appeal had succeeded, a legal precedent would have been set for regarding judgments by Singaporean courts as unenforceable outside Singapore. According to analyst Michael Backman, this might have had the effect of dissuading companies from using Singaporean law for arbitration and trial, and calling into question the fairness of the Singaporean legal system. However, Enernorth lost its appeals before the Court of Appeal and the Canadian Supreme Court.