I had written earlier about the Singapore Court of Appeal decision in TT International No. 2 and how it set out important guidelines on the disclosure of fees of a scheme manager in a scheme of arrangement. In particular, a Value-Added Fee (“VAF”) arrangement had not been disclosed where the greater the amount of the creditors’ debt that is written off or extinguished, the greater the quantum of the remuneration received by the scheme manager’s firm (nTan). By that stage, it was estimated that the quantum of the VAF was between S$15 million to $30 million.

It has now been reported (click here) that nTan has been allowed to admit a Queen’s Counsel, Michael Beloff, to act in a hearing before the Court of Appeal scheduled for October 2013. nTan is seeking to set aside the TT International No. 2 judgment which effectively voided the fee arrangement agreed between nTan and TT International and also strongly criticised the firm.

nTan is arguing that it is unprecedented for an independent financial adviser’s fee arrangement to be decided in this manner. It also says that the judgment was made without proper jurisdiction, as nTan was never a party to the proceedings before the Court of Appeal; it also says it was deprived of natural justice as it never had the chance to challenge the assertions and evidence on which the judgment was based.

This will be an interesting case as I have been following the developments in the TT International dispute quite closely. It is also noteworthy that Singapore has seen more and more QCs gaining ad-hoc admission to argue cases in Singapore.