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Monday, 3 November 2008
(10.30 am)
MR VIJAY: May it
please your Honour.
COURT: Yes.
MR VIJAY: Your Honour,
may I call my next witness, William
Graham. His
affidavit is in the plaintiff's bundle of
affidavits, volume
1.
WILLIAM
GRAHAM (sworn)
Examination-in-chief by MR VIJAY
MR VIJAY: Your name is
Mr William Graham?
A. Correct.
Q. And your address is
30 Merchant Road, #04-19 Riverside
Point, Singapore
058282?
A. That is the address
of The Pump Room, which is our head
office.
Q. Could you then state
your residential address, please?
A. My residential
address is 237 Arcadia Road, #05-04 The
Arcadia, Singapore
289844.
Q. Your occupation?
A. I am a company
director.
Q. Can I refer to you
to your affidavit of
evidence-in-chief.
It's in volume 1, the whole of
volume 1, in the
plaintiff's bundle of affidavits.
A. Yes, I have it.
Q. Do you confirm the
contents of this affidavit to be true
10:32 and correct?
A. I do.
MR VIJAY: That's all,
your Honour.
Cross-examination by MR TAN
MR TAN: Your Honour,
with your leave.
Mr William
Graham, my name is Eugene Tan and I act
for the 1st
defendants, Poole Associates. I will be
taking you through
cross-examination.
Mr Graham, you
are the single largest shareholder of
The Pump Room?
A. Not correct.
Q. How many shares do
you hold in The Pump Room then?
A. 325,000.
Q. And who are the
other shareholders?
A. The largest
shareholder in The Pump Room is Quayside
Dining Pte Ltd with
675,000. I am also a shareholder of
Quayside Dining Pte
Ltd, but not a majority shareholder.
My family and I and
my wife together control roughly
65 per cent of The
Pump Room. I think that's the
question you're
really asking.
Q. Okay. Thank you
very much. Let's talk about Quayside
Dining Pte Ltd.
What is Quayside Dining Pte Ltd's
business?
A. It runs
restaurants. It has two restaurants in Clarke
Quay and one
restaurant at the moment in Keppel. At
10:33 Clarke Quay it has
Quayside Dining, which is a seafood
restaurant; it has
Peony Jade, which is
a Szechuan/Cantonese
restaurant, and we opened about two
months ago another
Peony Jade at Keppel Golf Club.
Q. Mr Graham, would I
be correct to say that Quayside
Dining restaurant
and Peony Jade at Clarke Quay were
opened before The
Pump Room?
A. Quayside was opened
in 2002, but not in its present
location, and Peony
Jade was opened in 2004 in its
present location,
and Keppel was opened in 2008.
Q. How many years of
experience do you have in the food and
beverage industry.
A. Roughly four.
Q. And during this
time, how many outlets have you set up,
food and beverage
outlets?
A. Let me be clear, the
main experts in the food and
beverage industry in
our family is not me. My wife is
a Singaporean
Chinese lady and her family are Hainanese.
They have much
experience in the restaurant business.
My background is
accounting and marketing. I am not
historically a
restaurateur at all. My main experience
in restaurants is
enjoying what they serve.
Q. But you have set up
restaurants prior to The Pump Room?
A. We set up two
restaurants prior to The Pump Room. One
is Quayside and the
other is Peony Jade. The guiding
10:35 influences there
were more my wife's family, but, yes,
I was actively
involved as I was the main provider of
funds for those
operations.
Q. I also understand
that you were a director of
Sommerville?
A. Bill Sommerville,
the owner of Sommerville group, is my
father-in-law by a
previous marriage. Bill has
operations
throughout Asia, he has a factory in
Thailand, and he has
got operations in Hong Kong, in
China, in Malaysia,
in Thailand, in the Philippines and
in Singapore.
The Singapore
operation is a relatively small part
of the Sommerville
group, and I have got a 30 per cent
shareholding in the
Singapore operation only.
Q. Now, what is
Sommerville's business?
A. It depends which
Sommerville you're talking about --
Q. -- (unclear --
simultaneous speakers) --
A. Are you talking
about the group or are you talking about
the local company in
Singapore?
Q. The local one here
in Singapore which you --
A. As a designer,
installer and maintainer of commercial
kitchens.
Q. So would I be
correct to say that you have had
experience in
renovation works?
A. I play no part in
the active management of Sommerville.
10:36 I basically have
those shares because, during the Asian
crisis, the group
got in trouble, and I provided finance
to help them; I was
given these shares as payment for
the funds I
advanced, because the company didn't at that
time have any money
to pay us back.
Q. I actually have not
finished my question yet, Mr Graham.
A. My apologies.
Q. Prior to The Pump
Room, and my point is this, you have
had experience
setting up -- let me rephrase that, your
Honour -- prior to
The Pump Room, essentially, you have
had experience in
setting up food and beverage outlets
as well as carrying
out renovation works -- yes?
A. It depends how you
define "experience". Did I do it
myself? No. Did I
watch somebody else do it? Yes.
Q. And in these
projects, you hired interior designers?
A. I hired -- the
company hired, not me -- the company
hired a company
called Salim Tchi Mun is a reputable
designer, they hired
them for -- I believe I have
actually given you a
copy of the contract, they hired
them to do interior
design and project management for
the sum of $28,000,
for both Quayside Seafood and Peony
Jade.
Q. I am not just
restricting this to Quayside Dining, but
it extends as well
to Sommerville and your experience
there; you have
hired architects before?
10:38 A. Personally?
Q. Either personally --
A. No.
Q. Or in the capacity
of --
A. I once had the
misfortune to build a house in Belgium in
1984, and I had an
architect for that, and I am still
suffering from the
lashes that that gave me. That's the
only architect I
have ever hired personally.
I'm not clear
exactly where an architect and the --
I don't know,
whatever else, starts and finishes.
Mr Poole is the only
architect that I have ever been
involved in hiring.
I did not hire him personally; the
company, of course,
hired him. Not me.
Q. Right. But let me
repeat my question again, then: Did
Quayside hire
architects for its prior project, or
projects prior to
The Pump Room?
A. Tchi Mun was the
person hired. I do not recall his
exact
qualifications.
Q. Have you ever,
either as a director of Quayside or
Sommerville or in
your personal capacity, hired
engineers prior to
The Pump Room?
A. Hired engineers?
Q. Engaged engineers.
A. In a personal
capacity, no. I guess, if you think
through the various
projects, there are certainly M&E in
10:40 every -- in every
project. I guess they have engineers,
and I would guess
that they were hired. Did I do it
personally? No, I
did not. The hiring of these people
was done by the
project manager of the project in
question, not by
me. Project managers, essentially, are
almost invariably
responsible for hiring the experts
being called in,
whether they are M&E people or whatever
else they are. They
are supposed to be the people
coordinating the
hiring of the experts, as I'm sure
you're aware.
Q. My point is simply
this, Mr Graham: You had engaged
engineers before, so
you understand what --
A. Did I say that?
Q. No, I'm telling you
my point is this.
A. Oh, I see.
Q. You have hired
engineers before, either in your personal
capacity or as a
director or -- of Quayside Dining or
Sommerville --
A. I thought I said
quite the opposite. I thought I said
that as far as I
recall, the specialists were hired by
the project
manager. Did I -- did I not say that?
Q. Very well.
A. Can you clarify?
Because you are putting words in my
mouth.
Q. I'll rephrase my
question. Basically, you know what
10:41 engineers are
required to do in a project?
A. I am an absolute
ignoramus with things to do with --
anything to do with
construction, and I would like it to
stay that way,
because my experience so far has been
quite horrendous.
Q. Did you know --
A. May I have a glass
of water, please?
Q. Sure.
My apologies,
your Honour, but it's going to be a
long day.
COURT: All right.
MR TAN: It's all right.
A. My apologies,
Eugene. Please go ahead.
Q. It's all right.
Did you know
Clark Martin's previous experience in
the food and
beverage industry?
A. I knew primarily of
his involvement in Tapestry. I had
heard of other
things. Tapestry is a restaurant in
Clarke Quay which is
majority-owned by a chap called
Phil Robinson.
Clark has, as I recall, 24 per cent. He
was not actively --
he was not actively involved in the
management of that.
It was run by Phil Robinson.
I believe also
he had other restaurants, and I do
not believe, in any
of those restaurants, was he in fact
the controlling
shareholder. I think he was always in a
10:42 minority position.
Q. I didn't ask whether
or not he was a controlling
shareholder. My
question was, do you know whether or
not he had extensive
experience in the F&B industry?
A. Absolutely. Clark
has a lot of experience in F&B.
Q. Do you know how many
years of experience he had in the
food and beverage
industry?
A. I would guess -- I
mean, he must be 40 -- I would guess
at least 20. But
Clark, I believe, will be a witness,
and you can clarify
that with him.
Q. And do you know,
during this 20 years of experience, how
many food and
beverage outlets he has set up?
A. I think he's opened
at least half a dozen, and I think
all of them have
failed.
Q. Now, you earlier --
A. Except the Tapestry.
Q. Earlier you said,
and you confirmed that he has got
quite fair amount of
experience in the food and beverage
industry. So you
knew he also had contacts within the
industry?
A. Yes.
Q. And when you all
were conceptualising the Pump Room, did
you rely on Clark
for his contacts in the industry?
A. We did not rely on
Clark for his contracts in the
industry
exclusively. We used the contracts in the
10:44 industry that he
had.
I think Clark
gave two really important
introductions. One
was the band, and to be honest, a
tremendous amount of
the success of the Pump Room comes
from the fact that
Jive Talking is a superb band. The
other was the
contact with Mr Ed Poole. Mr Ed Poole was
introduced to us as
a person who had a unique blend of
experience which
made him the natural choice for this
job, and that was he
had worked with Brewerkz, which is
another -- and very
successful -- microbrewery. I
believe Mr Poole was
at one point a shareholder of
Brewerkz. I believe
he was a designer and project
manager of Brewerkz,
but I do not know that for certain,
and Mr Poole, if he
wishes, can confirm or deny it.
I believe the
other main introductions for the Pump
Room were the
introduction of the brewmaster, which was
done through a
contact of mine, and introduction of the
chef, which was done
through a contact of mine.
So I would say
that all of us contributed key
introductions to the
people who basically formed the
team of
designer/project manager/band/chef/brewmaster,
et cetera.
So yes, Clark
certainly played part.
Q. Mr Graham, did you
leave it to Clark Martin to source
for an interior
designer?
10:45 A. When Clark Martin
suggested Mr Ed Poole --
Q. Sorry to interrupt
you there, Mr Graham. I would
appreciate it if you
could just give an answer to my
question: "Yes",
"no", "maybe".
A. The answer is no.
The answer I
thought you were asking was why did we
choose Mr Poole. Mr
Martin mentioned Mr Poole and gave
his unique
qualifications, and then there was no
decision to make.
It is such a perfect combination of
Brewerkz and China
Jump that frankly, there is no other
designer in town who
would be -- remotely be as well
qualified.
So Mr Poole was
chosen without discussion. There
was a no-brainer
there.
Q. Now, did Clark
Martin inform you that he had used Poole
Associates
previously for his other projects?
A. He did not use Poole
Associates for all his other
projects. He did
use Poole Associates for at least
three or four other
projects.
Q. And he came -- or
rather Poole Associates came highly
recommended to the
Pump Room, isn't it?
A. He recommended Mr
Poole as being the exact type of
project manager we
wanted, and he recommended him highly
because of that.
Q. Now --
10:47 A. And we agreed very
quickly, because, as I say, it is a
-- we thought it was
a match made in heaven.
Q. Now, at the time
that the Pump Room was looking for an
interior designer,
did you know that Clark Martin was
using Poole
Associates for his other project, The
Highlander?
A. Yes.
Q. Yes.
A. The Highlander was
roughly -- I think two months in
advance of The Pump
Room. They opened just shortly
before the Pump
Room, because the mess that the project
was delayed The
Highlander as well as delaying the Pump
Room.
Q. Now, Mr Martin, or
Mr Clark Martin, had worked in three
or four projects;
was this including or excluding The
Highlander?
Sorry, let me
rephrase that.
A. I think you should
ask Mr Martin in detail about the
project he's worked
on, rather than my try to
remember --
Q. No, do you know --
A. -- as a witness.
I know that he
worked with several. The ones that
come to my mind, I
believe Mr Poole was involved in Cafe
Society. I believe
he was involved in China Jump. I do
10:48 not believe he was
involved in Tapestry. And there were
a few other projects
that Mr Martin can elaborate on.
Q. And since you know
or knew that Clark Martin had worked
on a number of
projects with Poole Associates
previously, you
assume that he was familiar with Poole
Associates'
practice, modus operandi?
A. Mr Martin said Poole
Associates -- specifically
Mr Poole -- was an
excellent designer, and he
recommended him
because he had experience of a brewery,
in Brewerkz, and he
had experience of a club, with China
Jump. That is why
he was recommended, and as I say, we
thought it was a
match made in heaven.
Q. No, my question was
this: Did you assume that Clark
Martin was familiar
with Poole Associates' practice and
modus operandi?
A. The thought never
crossed my mind.
Q. Did you leave Mr
Martin, then, to negotiate and deal
directly with Poole
Associates regarding his scope of
work and fees?
A. Very early on, Mr
Poole basically asked for a fee of
$75,000 for the
design and project management work. In
my experience, this
seemed extremely high. I have given
background already
as to what my parameters for saying
that were. I
mentioned $28,000 for the two restaurants
combined; I've
mentioned -- The Highlander was $18,000.
10:49 So I was very
uncomfortable with $75,000 asked.
However, we had
actually no negotiating position
whatsoever, because
we had already accepted Mr Poole,
and we recognised,
clearly, there was nobody around
remotely as good as
Mr Poole for this job -- or so we
thought at the time.
I therefore said
to Clark, "Look, you know this
chap; I don't know
him. I have no basis for negotiating
with him, because I
simply do not have any alternative
remotely as well
qualified. Please try to get some kind
of reduction. Use
your friendship with him to get
something off."
But it was not a
priority, because to be honest, the
fees were not
particularly relevant in the scope of the
project, and our
desire was to get up and running by
October 1st, which
was a top priority for us.
Q. I'm going to repeat
that question again, because I don't
think I got an
answer to it. Again, Mr Graham, may I
remind you before
you give your explanation -- and I'm
not stopping you
from giving an explanation, mind you --
but I would like a
direct answer to my question, "yes",
"no", "maybe",
before you go on to explain.
So I'm going to
ask that question one more time:
Did you leave Clark
Martin to deal directly with Poole
Associates about the
fees and the scope of work? Yes or
10:51 no?
A. You actually have
more than one question there. And
I'll --
Q. Okay, I will break
it up.
A. -- elaborate for
you. You said, did I leave him (sic)
to him to negotiate
with the fees? Answer, yes. Scope
of work, answer, no.
Please do not
put words into my mouth.
Q. All right. Thank
you for your answer.
Now, the
contract between Poole Associates and The
Pump Room was signed
only in July, the 6th of July 2006;
is that correct?
A. It was dated the 1st
of July 2006. I signed it on the
6th of July 2006.
That is correct.
Q. So would I be
correct to say, prior to July 2006, the
terms and conditions
of the contract between Poole
Associates and Pump
Room were not finalised?
A. Before the contract
was signed, the terms and conditions
were not identified
in detail, and therefore one
presupposes that the
normal terms and conditions would
be applying.
Now, if the
question you're asking -- well, that
basically is it. I
assumed that the normal terms and
conditions were
applying. But the key thing is that he
was the project
manager and the designer, as of, in my
10:52 mind, 2nd, 3rd of
May, 2006. And if you look at the
documentation, it is
very clear he was working flat out
on that.
Q. Mr Graham, in your
affidavit, you said that the terms of
the contract were
first forwarded to you in July 2006.
A. The detailed written
form -- detailed written terms;
correct.
Q. So prior to that
date, you never actually saw the terms
and conditions of
the proposed contract?
A. The terms and
conditions of all Mr Poole's contracts are
virtually identical.
Q. When you say
"virtually identical", identical with what?
A. If you look at the
Cafe Society terms, they were the
same. So we were,
through Clark Martin, familiar with
the normal terms
that Mr Poole had.
But are you
asking me, did I know them in detail?
Absolutely not. I
assumed that the normal standard
industry practice
terms and conditions would apply.
Were they spelt out
in detail? Absolutely not. They
were first spelt out
in detail for me on the 6th -- on
the 1st of July, I
guess, if the contract reached me by
then, but certainly
on the 6th of July, when I signed
it.
I would agree it
is open to conjecture what my
interpretation and
Mr Poole's interpretation were of the
10:54 terms and conditions
before that date, but I would argue
that normal
materials and conditions of an independent
restaurant contract
would apply.
Q. So following from
what you just said, you would agree
that until you saw
the terms and conditions, in July
2006, you did not
know the exact scope of work that
Poole Associates
were going to undertake?
A. I believe that the
exact scope of work of Poole
Associates was
interior designer and project manager for
The Pump Room
project as it is usually practised in the
industry for
independent restaurants. I did not think
it differed in any
way, shape, or form from the others
that I have seen
before and since, and my understanding
also is that Mr
Poole was designer and project manager
for all the projects
that he does -- did with Clarke
Quay -- sorry, with
Clark Martin.
Q. No, no. Let's go
back on this. Prior to July 2006, you
didn't see the terms
and conditions; right?
A. I did not see
written terms and conditions. Right. I
mean, that's rather
self-evident.
Q. Let's stop there.
So you wouldn't have known the exact
scope of work the
that Poole Associates had
contractually
undertaken prior to July 2006; is that
correct?
A. I assumed it was a
standard approach of interior
10:55 designer and project
manager, as is in the case of every
single independent
restaurant I have seen before or
since.
Q. Now, that's --
A. That is all I can
say.
Q. That is the problem,
Mr Graham. You assumed, but didn't
know the exact scope
of work; am I correct? It's a
yes-or-no question
only.
A. It's a yes-or-no
question which is self-evident. Of
course, the exact
scope of work, in intense detail, no.
The general scope of
work, interior designer and project
manager, yes.
Q. So --
A. If you like, I can
say interior designer and project
manager, yes, that
was his exact scope of work. If you
want me to go
through 15,000 different variations of
what that might or
might not imply, I cannot do that. I
was quite clear in
my mind that from early May, Mr Poole
was interior
designer and project manager. With no
discussion, it was
certain in my mind.
Q. Mr Graham, now, the
contract was only signed by you on
the 6th of July
2006. So it's fair to say that before
that date, there was
no contract between Poole
Associates and The
Pump Room; yes?
A. There was a verbal
contract. He was working on the
10:56 contract. Don't be
ridiculous. It wasn't a signed
contract; it was a
verbal contract.
Q. No, I said --
COURT: Did you say
"don't be ridiculous"?
A. Well, I mean -- my
apologies, your Honour.
COURT: He is a lawyer.
He is telling you that there is no
signed contract.
A. I thought he said
there was no contract, your Honour.
My apologies.
MR TAN: Well, I'll
repeat that question again, your Honour.
So prior to 6th
of July 2006, when you signed the
contract, am I
correct to say that there was no contract
between the
plaintiffs and Poole Associates? No signed
contract; sorry.
A. Your Honour, may I
ask him to be clear: Is it no
contract, or no
signed contract? It is quite different.
COURT: What is your
position?
A. My position is that
there was no signed contract. There
was a verbal
contract.
COURT: When was the
contract made?
A. It was made early in
May, and the documentation will
prove that
throughout May and throughout June, there was
extensive work done
by Mr Poole, by --
COURT: In your
affidavit, you said it was backdated to
1st July. So why
didn't you backdate -- (simultaneous
10:57 speakers - unclear)
--
A. -- I was talking
about the signing, your Honour; forgive
me. I was talking
about the signing of the contract was
backdated -- sorry,
the contract was dated 1st of July;
it was signed on the
6th of July.
And I believe we
said that we had no objections to
signing a contract
which had been backdated, because he
had effectively been
working since early May on the
project. It is a
small -- signing a contract on the 6th
when it's dated the
1st seems to be a little bit of an
issue. I mean we
had no issue with it at all, because,
effectively, he had
been working on the contract since
early May.
COURT: We have a
written document now which says that the
contract starts on 1
July.
A. We have a written
document dated 1 July, which spells
out in great detail
Mr Poole's responsibilities. Before
that document, Mr
Poole had agreed to accept the
position of interior
decorator and project manager and
had been working on
it since 2 May. By 4 July --
COURT: All the terms
had been settled?
A. The detailed terms
were not settled. He was the
interior decorator
and project manager --
COURT: All the
essential terms were settled?
A. The essential term
to me is simply that he is
10:58 an interior designer
and project manager --
COURT: All the
essential terms were settled, or is it just
a general concept,
"You are interior designer, take
over, come give us
your ideas"?
A. He was interior
designer and project manager from 2 May.
It is not give us
your ideas. We are desperate to get
started by 1 October
--
COURT: There is no
relevance --
A. We cannot afford to
lose time, the --
COURT: I asked you a
simple question; were the essential
terms of the
contract agreed upon in May?
A. In my mind, the
essential agreement was that Mr Poole
took over the job of
interior designer --
COURT: What were the
terms --
A. -- and project
manager.
COURT: What were the
terms?
A. I do not have a list
of terms. To me these jobs are
self-explanatory.
COURT: A contract has
to have clear terms.
A. The only terms I
have is that he was --
COURT: The written
terms of 1 July?
A. The written terms of
1 July put in writing the terms
that in my mind were
implicit from 2 May.
COURT: To your mind or
to both minds?
A. These are Mr Poole's
standard terms, so I can only
10:59 assume that, when he
accepted the job, he would assume
his standard terms
would apply; since these are his
standard terms, why
would I assume anything else would
apply?
COURT: Carry on.
MR TAN: Did you see
Poole Associates' standard terms prior
to July 2006?
A. I did not.
Q. You also confirm in
your affidavit that the fees to be
paid to Poole
Associates were only confirmed or agreed
in the end of June,
just prior to the terms or
conditions being
sent to you?
A. The fees asked by Mr
Poole were $75,000 and $75,000, if
he had basically
insisted, we were not going to argue
about that, that it
was acceptable.
Q. But that wasn't my
question.
A. So I asked Mr Clark
Martin --
COURT: No, his question
wasn't that. Listen to his
question.
MR TAN: My question was
that the fees before that were to
be paid to Poole
Associates who only agreed in the end
of June 2006, am I
correct?
A. The fees were agreed
in the signing of the contract on
6 July. The fee
proposed before that was $75,000, which
I felt was a bit
high, as I say.
11:01 Q. But you only agreed
to the sum of $68,000?
A. Mr Clark Martin was
successful in persuading Mr Poole to
take a little bit
less.
Q. And that was only in
the end of June 2006?
A. Well, no I think --
I can't recall the exact date that
the agreement on the
68 was made, but certainly the
agreement on the 68
was endorsed in the agreement signed
on 6 July, correct.
COURT: So you are
saying that, prior to that, you all have
not agreed upon the
price?
A. We had a price on
the table of $75,000 --
COURT: Which you didn't
accept?
A. -- which I felt was
high and I asked for some sort of
discount.
COURT: In other words,
there was no agreement yet?
A. There was no final
agreement in price until the
contracts of July 6
--
COURT: How can you have
a contract then, if you don't have
the price?
A. The price cap was
75,000.
COURT: That's not the
point. You have not agreed on the
price.
A. I take your point.
I had agreed that I would not be --
COURT: -- (simultaneous
speakers - unclear) -- to have
a contract, you need
to have agreement on important
11:02 terms. If you
haven't agreed on the price, then there's
no contract.
A. The point you're
making is valid. I had accepted
Mr Poole as project
manager, there was no question at
all about that --
COURT: That's not --
A. -- all I was arguing
was, "Give us a discount because 75
is a bit high". It
took Mr Poole a while, but had he
come back and said
no, he still would have got the
75,000.
COURT: That's not the
point. Until the end of June you
have not settled the
price?
A. Until 6 July we have
not settled the price. In our mind
we had categorically
settled on the appointment of
Mr Poole.
COURT: Mr Vijay, can
you all make up your mind so that the
trial can go on.
You see, a
contract has got to have its essential
terms settled. If
you are running around saying there
is an oral contract,
there is a written contract, what
is your stand?
Because you have not settled the
consideration for
the services.
I understand his
point. I mean you can talk to
an interior
designer, you can talk, you can get ideas,
you can see
sketches, but when you settle the amount,
11:03 you hire the person,
everything, then you can talk.
So what is your
client's position, otherwise Mr Tan
will be going on and
on on this.
MR VIJAY: Sir, I think
here the peculiar circumstances of
the case was that I
think what we had committed was
that Mr Ed Poole did
start his work --
COURT: No, no, we are
talking about the contract.
MR VIJAY: I think our
position --
COURT: You can submit
that he started his work earlier
because I told him
about that, that's fine.
A. Your Honour, may I
make a comment?
COURT: Yes.
A. The final design for
The Pump Room dining/restaurant
area was finalised
by 4 July, finalised.
MR TAN: No, we disagree
with that.
MR VIJAY: Your Honour,
our position insofar as the
agreement is
concerned, yes, the formal agreement was
signed --
COURT: Don't use the
words "formal agreement". I am
interested in what
is your position on the contract,
that's all, the
employment contract.
MR VIJAY: Your Honour,
the plaintiff's position would be
that there was an
oral agreement to when he was already
working on it,
except the price --
COURT: You see --
11:05 MR VIJAY: -- and if
there was a dispute as to price --
COURT: You should know
that, if you don't know the price,
can you say, "I have
a contract to buy wheat from you",
when we haven't
settled the price.
MR VIJAY: Yes, your
Honour, in that sense --
COURT: We could have
negotiations, you may know that I need
the wheat, et
cetera, that is a separate issue.
MR SREENIVASAN: Your
Honour, I am going to be taking a very
clear pleading
point, so I think it would be good for me
to highlight to my
learned friend the pleading point.
If your Honour
looks at the bundle of pleadings,
page 5, here we have
originally an endorsement of claim,
and in the
endorsement of claim, the plaintiff claims
against the 1st
defendant damages and losses arising
from the 1st
defendant's breach of express and/or
implied terms of the
agreement dated 1 July 2006, made
between the
plaintiff and the 1st defendant.
If we then look
at the amended statement of claim,
your Honour, at page
13 of the same bundle of pleadings
at paragraph 6, we
have some time around April/May 2006
the plaintiff put
together a business plan to operate
a microbrewery cum
restaurant, at 7, the plaintiff chose
the 1st defendant to
be the designer and project
manager, and at the
last line of paragraph 7, the
agreement was dated
1 July 2006.
11:06 If your Honour
now moves to page 14, paragraph 9,
under "Terms of
contract", it is pleaded that the
plaintiff will refer
to the contract prepared by the
1st defendant and
signed by both parties and dated
1 July 2006 for the
full terms and effect.
So it would be
my submission -- whatever the
evidence of this
witness is -- it would be my submission
at the appropriate
point in time that the pleaded case
does not allow
reference to an oral contract, because no
oral contract has
been pleaded, no terms of an oral
contract have been
put forward, and, therefore, we have
nothing except 1
July, and if the plaintiff's case is
now saying there was
an earlier oral contract, then
there would have to
be a requisite application for
amendment, with the
consequences that would follow.
MR VIJAY: Your Honour,
if my learned friend -- I didn't
want to make all
this detailed submission, because
I don't want to
prejudice the cross-examination, that's
why I was refraining
and choosing my words carefully,
but, since my
learned friend has gone into such details
then I think it's
only appropriate, if you read
paragraph 10 of the
same pleadings, it says that one of
the clauses in that
agreement of 1 July, your Honour,
was that we
incorporate everything that we have
discussed prior to
that, so there is a bit of
11:08 a difficulty there.
The clause "as
discussed at meetings in early
2000" -- this is
(unclear) by Ed Poole, so I was keeping
it for my cross. So
we have a not so clear -- from
a layperson's point
he would say all this, but we leave
it for submission.
COURT: All right, yes.
MR TAN: Your Honour, I
think I have gotten the answers that
I wanted already
from cross-examination. I'm just going
to put my case, and
I'll move on, your Honour.
Mr Graham, my
case is simply this, and I am putting
it to you, and you
can either agree or disagree, and my
case is this; prior
to 6 July 2006, there was no
contract between
Poole Associates and The Pump Room --
do you agree or
disagree?
A. I disagree.
Q. All right. Let's
move on then. Let's take a look at
the terms of the
contract, if we can look at your
affidavit of
evidence-in-chief.
COURT: Which contract
are you referring to now?
MR TAN: The contract
between Poole Associates and The Pump
Room.
COURT: You are talking
about the July contract, are you?
MR TAN: The July
contract, that's right.
COURT: So to be fair to
the witness --
11:09 A. Can you give me the
page? This is my affidavit?
Q. Page 110 of your
affidavit of evidence-in-chief.
A. That's just the
cover page.
Q. That's right. Mr
Graham, when you signed this contract,
you knew that the
contract was between the plaintiffs
and Poole
Associates, correct, and not Ed Poole
personally?
A. Correct.
Q. Did you ever say to
Poole Associates, "Please change the
party in the
contract from Poole Associates to
Ed Poole"?
A. I did not.
Q. Would I therefore be
correct to say that there was no
intention on your
part, or rather The Pump Room's part,
to enter into the
contract directly with the
3rd defendant?
A. The person we were
hiring was the skills of the
3rd defendant, but
we were not entering into a contract
with him personally,
we were entering into a contract
with Poole
Associates Pte Ltd.
Q. Let's move on to the
scope of works.
Mr Graham, when
Poole Associates were approached to
carry out interior
design works, the company was already
committed to opening
a microbrewery on site, correct?
A. We were committing
to opening a microbrewery on site
11:11 essentially when we
signed the final -- or received the
final go-ahead from
Clarke Quay that we had the site.
That would be some
time in April.
Q. In April 2000?
A. We were committed
towards Clarke Quay in April,
verbally, but we
were committed, so, yes, before we --
we got in touch with
Mr Poole about, as I recall,
17 April, something
like that, when he was introduced to
us, so roughly about
the same time as we were going to
be going ahead, we
met Mr Poole.
Q. Would I be correct
to say that by the time Poole
Associates were
approached by Mr Clark Martin for The
Pump Room project,
the plaintiffs, i.e. The Pump Room
were already
independently shortlisting brewing
equipment?
A. We were certainly
working on shortlisting brewing
equipment. As I
recall, we had two or three possible
sources, one was a
Czech source and one was a New
Zealand source.
The person doing
the brewing side was not me, it was
being handled by one
of our shareholders, Mr Chris
Shelley. Chris came
to the parties because he actually
was familiar with
food and beverage processing plant, so
my recollection is,
yes, around about then we were
checking out various
types of brewing equipment.
11:12 Q. And I am sure you
will agree with me that brewing beer
requires special
expertise; you need the right equipment
and knowhow in the
production and storage of beer --
yes?
A. Yes.
Q. And you did not have
such expertise -- yes?
A. Absolutely, yes.
I'm good at drinking it, not making
it.
Q. And that's why you
hired Colin Simpson to assist with
starting up the
microbrewery; am I right to say that?
A. Let me be very clear
what Mr Simpson is and is not;
Mr Simpson actually
worked in the same company as
Mr Shelley, they are
people who are knowledgeable about
brewing equipment,
the equipment you require to brew
beer and about
equipment generally for food and beverage
processing, so they
are people who understand the
manufacturing
process of beer and the equipment required
to make beer.
Does that answer
the question? Sorry?
Q. No. Maybe I will
rephrase it then; did The Pump Room
engage Colin Simpson
to help them start up the
microbrewery?
A. Colin Simpson was a
shareholder of The Pump Room, in
a small way; as I
recall, he has 10,000 shares and gave
a 10,000 loan. We
never paid him a fee, as such, for
11:14 his assistance.
Colin Simpson has a full-time and very
busy job, he was not
actually working for us as
a consultant, if
that's the question.
Q. Was Colin Simpson
the person who drew up the layout
plans for the
microbrewery? Just to help put things in
perspective, your
Honour, if you could turn to
Ed Poole's affidavit
of evidence-in-chief,
exhibit EDP-4.
A. Can you give me a
page number?
Q. 50.
A. Which is Ed Poole
himself.
Q. Yes, the 1st
defendant's affidavit of evidence-in-chief.
A. Sorry, the 1st
defendant is Poole Associates.
Q. Poole Associates?
A. So it's Poole
Associates. I am looking at Ed Poole's
himself.
Q. Well, it's his
affidavit of evidence-in-chief, but if
you look at the
first page it's "1st defendant's
affidavit of
evidence-in-chief"?
A. Sorry, the number
again for this one?
Q. Page 50, exhibit
EDP-4.
A. I'm actually at the
club --
Q. I think you have the
wrong affidavit of
evidence-in-chief.
There is another affidavit of
evidence-in-chief
affirmed by Mr Edward David Poole,
11:16 with a blue spine.
A. I'm looking.
Q. At the front page it
says "1st defendant's affidavit of
evidence-in-chief"?
A. My apologies, your
Honour, this is quite a piano to play
here.
COURT: Just take your
time.
MR TAN: Page 50.
COURT: Is that the
plan?
MR TAN: That is the
final layout plan, your Honour, and
I thought I would
refer everybody to this, because it
gives a perspective
of what the project was about.
Mr Graham, do
you see that area highlighted in
yellow?
A. Yes.
Q. That area is the
dining room and toilet area of The Pump
Room?
A. Yes, it is.
Q. And, just below
that, I actually have marked it, or
I personally have
highlighted it in pink, that's The
Highlander.
Maybe what I can
do is pass this around just to show
where The Highlander
is and I will show Mr Graham as
well.
A. I know this. Are
you saying that the pink is The
11:18 Highlander because,
if you are saying that, it's not
correct.
Q. Why don't you
highlight The Highlander area and then
also highlight in
blue the microbrewery?
A. You want the
microbrewery in blue?
Q. That's right.
A. And you want The
Highlander in what colour?
Q. Pink.
A. The Highlander is my
assessment, I don't actually know
The Highlander. I'm
telling you what I think it is.
Q. Roughly, in pink.
A. What is missing here
is there is an area of public space
which belongs to
neither The Highlander nor The Pump
Room; are you
familiar with that?
Q. Yes. But if you can
just mark out The Highlander area
and the
microbrewery.
A. I think that would
be --
Q. Could I just get the
exhibit marked out. What I will do
is pass it around so
everybody can mark it.
Can I now ask
you to turn to page 175 of the agreed
bundle of
documents. Page 175, your Honour, is in
volume 2 of the
agreed bundle of documents.
At page 175 of
the agreed bundle, Mr Graham -- are
you there?
A. I'm there, yes.
11:23 Q. There is an email
from Clark Martin to Colin Simpson,
and he is asking
Colin Simpson for a file of drawings or
layouts, so that he
can pass it to Ed Poole, the
designer.
Now, are these
drawings or layouts the drawings and
layouts of the
microbrewery which is the area that you
have highlighted in
blue?
A. There's two elements
here; one, he's talking about the
corridor space,
which is the space heading for the riser
room, and I have no
idea why Clark is showing this to
Colin Simpson.
Q. Let's go down to the
email just below that, do you see
that? It is an
email on 15 May from Colin Simpson to
you?
A. Yes.
Q. Your email is
lapssg@yahoo.com, right? Is that correct,
Mr Graham?
A. Yes -- no, I agree,
I'm just trying to work out what the
link is at all
between this corridor and the brewery,
because I have no
idea.
Q. Well, if you look at
the email below, would I be correct
to say that Mr Colin
Simpson was doing the layouts for
the microbrewery?
A. The layouts for the
microbrewery are basically done by
NDA, the
manufacturer, and Colin is helping us fit that
11:25 into the site here,
the microbrewery itself is designed
by NDA --
Q. Sorry, just to get
that, how do you spell NDA?
A. NDA is the
manufacturer of the microbrewery --
Q. NDA, sorry.
A. I have to apologise,
I have absolutely no idea why Colin
Simpson is talking
about the corridor, my apologies,
your Honour, I have
no idea whatsoever.
Colin Simpson is
a full-time and very busy
executive, working
for a company called APV, he was
a small shareholder
in The Pump Room and he was giving
us general advise on
the brewery itself.
Now somebody
else has to answer the question as to
what this is about.
Perhaps Clark can tell you, because
I really have no
idea.
Q. Very well. The main
thing is this; NDA were the ones
responsible for the
layout for the microbrewery, not
Poole Associates?
That's all I am
getting at --
A. Can we clarify what
we're talking about? There's two
elements in the
microbrewery; one is the equipment to
make the beer, and
that has nothing to do with Mr Poole
at all; and the
other is the room to take the equipment,
and that has
everything to do with Mr Poole, because,
basically, it's like
a kitchen, you have to provide the
11:26 space so you can put
the equipment in place, and the
equipment has to be
able to fit into the space, so you
will see many emails
between Mr Poole and other people
talking about the
layout of the brewery because he
needed that to get
the space correct.
Q. Who determines where
to place the brewing equipment?
NDA?
A. The brewing
equipment -- the layout basically defines
itself by the tanks
you're trying to install and the
space that they
require.
There is a
natural flow of product from the brewing
kettle to the
fermentation -- to the maturation tanks,
the maturation tanks
need a cold room, so there is
a flow there. The
number of maturation tanks, the
number of
fermentation tanks and the size of the brewing
kettle determine
what you have to fit into the space,
so, I guess,
basically, you take that into account and
you define the space
that you need.
So the space, I
guess, was defined between the
various people, but,
obviously, the project manager is
the person who was
putting all this together.
Q. No. Who gave you
the layouts for where the equipment
was to be installed;
was it NDA?
A. Well, no one
actually gave me the layouts. The people
who were doing it
were Mr Poole, Mr Simpson and NDA,
11:28 and, between them,
I'm sure they worked it out, but it
was not me.
Q. So you don't know?
A. I have no idea of
anything to do with layouts at all.
I'm sorry, I'd like
to help, but I can't.
Q. Mr Graham, can you
confirm that Poole Associates had
nothing to do with
purchasing the brewing equipment?
A. I can confirm that.
Q. And when was the
brewing equipment purchased?
A. I believe it was
purchased to be delivered in August.
I recall there was a
three-month delay, so probably by
the end of May the
order would have been placed.
I would have to
confirm that, but roughly the end
of May.
Q. Roughly the end of
August?
A. No, no. It was to
be delivered by 1 August.
Q. But when was it
purchased?
A. The order was given
some time, I would guess, in May.
I would have to
check that, but my recollection would be
about May.
Q. So it was purchased
in May and only delivered on site
in August, am I
correct to say that?
A. It was not delivered
on site. It was delivered to
a warehouse and it
remained on the shelves there for
several months.
11:29 Q. And who was
responsible for identifying and purchasing
the brewing
equipment?
A. The person who was
purchasing the brewing equipment was
Christopher Shelley.
Q. Before The Pump Room
purchased this brewing equipment,
did anyone ask Colin
Simpson, NDA, or Poole Associates,
for that matter,
whether or not it fitted into the
overall layout
plans?
A. The fact is that
that is not a question that one has to
ask. We basically
had agreed with Clarke Quay that we
will install a
microbrewery. We specifically asked for
a microbrewery that
was quite compact, because of the
space constraints
and the cost of renting space there,
and that was
provided by NDA, so this was as compact
a microbrewery as we
could get, given the volume of beer
that we wanted, and,
whatever happened, it had to go in
there because we
were a microbrewery.
Q. Let's turn and look
at page 174 of the agreed bundle of
documents. That is
still in volume 2.
A. 174?
Q. That's just the page
before the email we were referring
to earlier.
A. Is that volume 2?
Q. Volume 2, page 174.
Let's look at the email below,
where Colin Simpson
is writing to you. Do you see at
11:32 paragraph 3 -- can
you read that out to us?
A. "The area marked in
blue needs reinforcing to suit
a loading of 25
kilonewtons per metre squared to support
the weight of the
finished beer tanks... "
Q. Correct. "The
finished beer tanks" -- carry on reading.
A. "... at
approximately 30,000 kilograms."
Q. When was this email
sent to you, Mr Graham?
A. When?
Q. When?
A. When? It was sent
on 8 May.
Q. So would I be
correct to say, looking at this email, as
early as 8 May 2006,
you knew that there were potential
loading problems
with the brewing tanks?
A. I did not know the
various loading factors, but, yes, at
or about this date,
it would be clear to us that we had
loading problems and
that some work would have to be
done.
I would point it
out that Mr Poole was already on
board. On a verbal
basis only.
Q. Now, having been
alerted to this loading problem, or
potential loading
problem, did you go and look for a
structural engineer?
A. I personally did
not. As I say, Mr Poole was the
project manager at
this point, and I would have expected
him to do so.
11:34 Q. Let's move on to a
different area. Let's talk about
RSP.
When you first
got involved with the Clarke Quay,
ie the Quayside
Dining Pte Ltd, or -- what's your
restaurant again,
sorry? The Quayside Dining
Restaurant?
A. The company is
called Quayside Dining Pte Ltd. The
restaurants are
called Quayside Seafood and Peony Jade.
Q. And that's located
in Clarke Quay?
A. It's located in
Clarke Quay.
Q. And when you did
that, did you know that Clarke Quay had
special conservation
rules and regulations? Were you
aware?
A. I think we all do.
It's a conservation area.
Q. And were you aware
that any plans regarding the addition
or alteration of the
premises had to be submitted to
relevant government
authorities, like BCA, URA, Fire
Safety Bureau?
A. I have no idea, and
I had no idea what all that meant.
I am not in any way,
shape, or form a construction
expert. I rely on
people to advise me in this area. At
this moment in time
I was relying on Mr Poole, and
nobody else.
Q. When you did the
Quayside Dining premises, were your
plans approved by
the government authorities before your
11:35 construction works
began?
A. Quayside Dining is
entirely al fresco. It was handled
by Salim Tchi Mun.
I was not involved in submitting
plans.
Q. What about Peony
Jade?
A. Peony Jade is on the
second floor of a heritage shop
house. All of the
approvals submissions were handled by
the designer/project
manager.
Q. But you were aware
that certain submissions and
approvals had to be
obtained before construction works
could begin?
A. I was absolutely
unaware of the details of these. I
relied on experts to
advise me. I do not -- I did not
even know what "URA"
meant, or "NEA" meant, or "BCA"
meant, or -- I have,
however, gone through a rather
painful learning
process over the last couple of years,
but to this day I
forget half of the names of -- of
these people. I
have never been directly involved
myself with any of
these people.
Q. I am not asking you
about the details of the approvals
and submissions; all
I'm asking you is that you knew
that approvals and
plans had to be submitted to the
authorities --
A. Yes.
Q. -- before
construction works began. Yes. Thank you.
11:36 Now, Mr Graham,
when you first met Poole Associates,
you knew they were
interior designers; yes?
A. Sorry, I never met
Poole Associates. Are you asking me
that I met Mr Ed
Poole? When I first met Mr Ed Poole,
did I know he was an
interior designer?
Q. Yes.
A. Because I never met
anyone called Poole Associates.
Q. Okay. When you
first met Mr Ed Poole from Poole
Associates --
A. Yeah.
Q. -- did you know that
Poole Associates were a firm of
interior designers?
A. My understanding is
that Poole Associates had handled
the Brewerkz
project, interior design and project
management. To me
they were a Poole -- a company of
interior designers
and project managers.
Q. Did Clark Martin
ever introduce them as
Singapore-qualified
architects or structural engineers?
A. I don't think you
would actually introduce people in
that way. What I
knew of Poole Associates -- and as you
can see in their web
site and as you can see on their
contracts -- is that
Mr Poole identifies himself as an
architect in three
different countries. One is in
America; one is in
Australia; and he also claims to be
an associate -- I
believe that's the phrase -- of the
11:38 Singapore Institute
of Architects. So was presented to
me as an extremely
well qualified and knowledgeable
individual who has
been --
Q. Yes, but --
A. -- let me finish --
Q. -- was he introduced
to you as a Singapore-qualified
architect or
structural engineer?
A. -- who has been in
Singapore for 16 years, and therefore
must extremely
familiar with the Singapore laws. No one
said to me, "This is
Mr Poole, and he is a fully
qualified Singapore
architect." Nobody said that.
Q. Nobody told you that
Mr Poole or Poole Associates were a
Singapore-qualified
architect or structural engineer?
A. He was never
introduced to me as a Singapore-qualified
architect; correct.
Q. Did Poole Associates
--
A. What I assumed was
perhaps that he was, but no one
actually said to me
that he was.
Q. Did Clark ever
inform you that Poole Associates could
submit drawings to
the government authorities and obtain
the -- (simultaneous
speakers - unclear) --
A. -- my understanding
of what Poole Associate could or
could not do was
basically on the ASIA comment, and I
agree that one can
take that as being an associate. If
he is unable to
submit drawings, it's a very simple
11:39 solution: He hires
somebody who can. And that was his
job. As project
manger, if he is unable to do
something, then he
has to hire specialists. It is
actually in his
contract, as I understand it.
Q. So am I correct to
say, therefore, that from the
beginning, you knew
that Poole Associates couldn't
submit drawings to
the government authorities?
A. Poole Associates,
from the beginning, could appoint
someone to submit
drawings to the government. From the
beginning.
Q. I'm not asking them
whether he could appoint someone;
I'm asking them, did
you know that -- whether or not
they could do it
themselves?
A. Did I know? I did
not know.
Q. So there is really
no basis to assume that Poole
Associates could
submit drawings, isn't it, to the
government
authorities?
A. I didn't know
whether they could or could not. What I
did know is they
should have done so, because they were
the project
managers, and it was up to them to organise
it to be done.
Q. Let me take you to
your affidavit, Mr Graham. Let's
look at paragraph 32
of your affidavit.
A. Your Honour, I am
very slow; I do apologise. I will get
there.
11:40 COURT: Are you on the
same point? Are you on the same
point or going to
something --
MR TAN: I am still on
the same point, your Honour. But
perhaps, if Mr Vijay
would like a break now, we could
take a short recess
of five minutes, your Honour?
COURT: Is it convenient
for you to have a break?
MR TAN: That's fine,
your Honour.
MR VIJAY: Can we have
ten minutes' break? I promised this.
COURT: Yes, sure.
We will adjourn
for five, ten minutes.
(11.41 am)
MR TAN: Now, Mr Graham,
before the break, we were talking
about RSP and their
scope of work. In particular,
submission of plans
and drawings.
Let's turn and
look at page 115 of your affidavit.
That's where Ed
Poole's -- or rather Poole Associates'
contract is set
out. If you look right at the last
paragraph there, and
if I can just read out:
"Services for
the preparation of submission drawings
to any authorities,
are not included in our fee as our
outlined herein, nor
are the services of a registered
architect to certify
and stamp these submission drawings
if required. Full
interior drawings in digital format
will be issued to
the submitting Architect, which may be
altered as
required."
11:58 Do you accept
that it was not Poole Associates'
responsibility to
submit drawings?
A. I accept that given
that they are not able to submit
drawings, it cannot
be taken as their responsibility.
My argument would be
that they have a responsibility for
making sure drawings
are submitted by someone who is
competent to do so.
Q. And in fact --
A. I believe that is
covered by another clause in his
contract.
Q. And in fact, Mr
Graham, as early as May 2006, before the
contract was signed,
you knew that Poole Associates
couldn't submit
drawings, isn't it?
A. I have no
recollection of knowing or not knowing that.
But --
Q. Let's take a look at
paragraph 32 of your affidavit.
A. I'm actually looking
for it. Page 32?
Q. Page 16, paragraph
32.
A. Page 16.
Q. Can you read that
paragraph out.
A. "On or around late
May 2006 we learned that Ed Poole was
not qualified, to
make the necessary submissions for
approvals for URA in
spite of his 16 years in Singapore.
We therefore had to
engage the services of one RSP a
firm of architects,
to facilitate the application for
11:59 the relevant
permits."
Q. So you knew as early
as May 2006 that Poole
Associates --
A. Late --
Q. -- could not submit
drawings?
A. Late May.
Q. And the person or
the firm responsible for submitting
the drawings would
be RSP Architects, whom you have
hired or engaged;
correct?
A. The reason we chose
RSP Architects --
Q. Answer the question
first. Yes or no?
A. RSP were hired to
undertake this.
Q. I want you to look
at paragraph 31 of your affidavit,
just above that. I
only need you to read the last
sentence of that
paragraph.
A. "It was
disappointing when we learned that Ed Poole made
no applications at
all in July or August 2006".
Q. And when you mean
"applications", you mean submissions
of drawings; yes?
In your affidavit here?
A. I would say
applications for approvals. The actual
process is not --
not within my remit.
Q. And the application
can only be submitted if the
drawings are
submitted through the architects; yes?
A. With due respect,
what I'm requesting Mr Poole do is
organise for the
submissions. He is the project
12:00 manager.
Q. No --
A. Whether he submits
personally or whether he organises
for the submission,
there is no one else in our team
remotely capable of
doing anything in this area. He is
the only person with
any knowledge whatsoever. I am
entirely reliant on
him.
Q. What about RSP
Architects, whom you have hired,
Mr Graham?
A. I have -- we have
hired them to proceed with it, but it
should have been Mr
Poole who organised the hiring of
them, and it should
be Mr Poole who monitored an
controlled them.
Certainly not me. I had no idea what
to do.
Q. No, the point is, in
May 2006, you knew Poole Associates
couldn't submit
drawings; that's why you hired RSP.
Yes? It must be.
That's in your affidavit.
A. I hired RSP -- or
the company hired RSP -- to do this.
The disappointing
thing is it was not done through
Mr Poole.
Q. But that was in July
or August 2006, Mr Graham. My
point is this -- and
I'll get to it, so we avoid
ding-donging here --
there was no reason for you to feel
disappointed that
Poole Associates had not submitted the
applications in
July/August, and the reason for that is
12:01 because it was RSP
Architects' duties. Do you agree or
disagree?
A. I disagree
entirely. Mr Poole was project manager. The
contract was signed
in July and August. He was
responsibility
entirely -- my goodness -- for handling
all of this. None
of us were. I am ignorant.
Mr Martin is
ignorant. Only Mr Poole, in the entire
team, was qualified
to control this and monitor this.
And Mr Poole did not
do it. And he was there with a
signed contract at
that point in time, and that contract
specifies that he is
to take care of the other
consultants.
Q. So if there were any
delay in the submissions of plans
and drawings, and
consequently approval for works to
begin, RSP, and not
Poole Associates, should be
responsible for it;
yes?
A. I disagree.
Q. All right. Let's
move on, then. Let's move on to
structural works.
Did you know
that structural works were not within
Poole Associates'
scope of works as well? Did you know
that Poole
Associates were not structural engineers?
A. Whether they are or
are not structural engineers is I
think a point --
Q. Answer the question
first.
12:03 A. -- of evidence.
Q. Answer the question
first.
A. I know Poole
Associates are architects. I know Poole
Associates are the
project manager. I know Poole
Associates are the
only people who are qualified to deal
with technical
items. And therefore I expected Poole
Associates to
appoint appropriate consultants, and
manage those
consultants, as part of the project
management
responsibility.
Q. I don't think you
have answered my question. Do you
know that Poole
Associates what were not structural
engineers? Yes or
no? It's a simple question.
A. I have no idea of
the individual -- how can I put it --
qualifications of
everybody in Poole Associates. The
only personal I met
was Mr Poole, and he is not a
structural engineer.
So I agree, to
my knowledge, there was no one in
Poole Associates who
was a structural engineer.
Q. Let's look at page
116 of your affidavit of
evidence-in-chief.
And I'm going back to the contract
now.
116, let me read
it out:
"Should
consultancy services be required from other
consultants, such as
an Architect, Quantity Surveyor,
M&E Engineer,
Structural Engineer, kitchen, acoustical,
12:04 lighting or graphics
Consultant, their fees will be in
addition to those
outlined herein."
My point is
this: Isn't it clear from this that
Poole Associates
were not structural engineers, and the
work that they had
undertaken was not structural
engineering works?
A. I am not arguing
that they are or are not structural
engineers. Insofar
as structural engineering work was
concerned, it was
the project manager's job to make sure
that appropriate
people were engaged to undertake that
work; not to sit
there and say, "I'm not a structural
engineer, so I won't
do anything."
Q. Do you confirm that
you had engaged RPS Architects as
structural engineers
in July 2006?
A. Sorry, would you
repeat the question?
Q. Did you engage RSP
Architects as the structural
engineers in July
2006?
A. I believe so.
Q. Was their scope of
works to do the drawings and prepare
the structural -- or
rather to prepare the structural
drawings for the
structural works, including
micro-piling on the
project site?
A. I believe so, yes.
Q. Were their
responsibility to obtain the permits to carry
out structural works
at the project?
12:05 A. I believe so, yes.
Q. And it was also
their duty to ensure that the structural
works were carried
out in accordance with the approved
drawings; yes?
A. I believe so, yes.
Q. Okay. Did you know
that these structural drawings,
Mr Graham, were only
issued in October 2006?
A. I'm aware of a great
degree of correspondence between
Mr Poole and RSP.
I'm aware of great deal of bad
feeling between them
--
Q. Did you know that
the drawings --
A. -- and I'm aware
that there were severe delays caused to
the submission of
the drawings by the inadequacies of
Mr Poole.
Q. Did you know that
the structural drawings were only
confirmed in October
2006?
A. There were --
Q. Yes or no?
A. Yes.
Q. And am I correct to
say that the bulk of structural
works had to do with
the micro-piling, which was needed
to support the
brewing vats?
A. Absolutely.
Q. Am I also correct to
say that the permit for the
structural works was
only issued in November 2006?
12:07 A. That is correct.
Q. So would you agree
with me that having engaged
RSP Architects in
July 2006 to carry out the structural
works, if there was
any delay in the preparation of the
drawings, these were
RSP's problems, not Poole
Associates'?
A. May I refer you to
page 104 of --
Q. Can you just answer
the question before you do that?
A. My answer is no, and
I'm referring you to page 104 to
show you why.
If you go to the
second-last paragraph, it says as
follows:
"Poole
Associates Private Limited will co-ordinate
with the consulting"
--
MR SREENIVASAN: Sorry,
if I can check with the witness:
Are you referring to
page 104 of your affidavit?
A. I am, yes. My
apologies; I'm perhaps getting a little
excited.
My apologies,
your Honour, if I'm getting a
little --
MR SREENIVASAN: Your
Honour, I don't want to get the
witness misleading
himself, but if he looks -- I think
page 104 belongs to
a contract for Cafe Society, which
starts at page 98.
It may be the same term, but --
A. It's exactly the
same -- I'm trying to find Poole
12:08 Associates.
MR SREENIVASAN: It's
okay.
A. Can we find Poole
Associates' contract?
I need the Poole
Associates contract, Vijay. The
same paragraph.
COURT: Which sentence
are you reading?
A. What I was reading,
your Honour, on page 104 --
MR TAN: Poole
Associates -- just to help you, Poole
Associates' contract
with The Pump Room starts at 110.
MR SREENIVASAN: And the
same page is at 119, Mr. Graham.
A. Thank you very much.
It says:
"Poole
Associates Private Limited will co-ordinate
with the consulting
engineers and architects, if any, in
the compilation and
analysis of data relevant to the
respective
disciplines and the project as a whole."
That is what we
expected Mr Poole do, and that is
what he manifestly,
repeatedly, and endlessly failed to
do.
MR TAN: But you would
also agree with me that he did not
undertake the
structural works, based on just this
reading?
A. He is not there to
undertake everything. He is there to
ensure that
everything is done properly by the
appropriate people.
12:09 COURT: Do we have any
evidence before us whether the
structural engineers
were late, or ...?
A. There were quite a
few documents, which I believe are in
evidence, showing
disputes between Mr Poole and the
structural
engineers. The drawings submitted by
Mr Poole, according
to the structural engineers, were
not adequate to be
put forward to the relevant
authorities, and
there were some very vociferous emails
back and forth on
that subject.
MR TAN: I should point
out, your Honour, this has never
been pleaded, nor
has it been raised in any of the
evidence in the
affidavit.
A. I have to ask for
some support from Vijay in finding the
document. It's from
RSP Architects, and it's
criticising Mr
Poole.
MR VIJAY: Your Honour,
we have disclosed these documents to
the other parties
here, and I believe Eugene has made
a bundle of others
--
COURT: Yes, but is it
part of your case, as pleaded?
MR VIJAY: Yes, your
Honour, it would be, so I will just
make a quick bundle
of those. It is very voluminous, so
I didn't want to
chuck everything in.
MR SREENIVASAN: Your
Honour, is my learned friend referring
to the last-minute
--
MR VIJAY: RSP, yes.
12:11 MR SREENIVASAN: -- RSP
documents, which my learned friend
specifically said in
his letter will not be referred to
by the plaintiffs?
Because that is a covering letter
that came to us, and
so when I referred to it, I said,
"Okay, Mr Vijay
doesn't want to refer to it, and it's
not part of the
plaintiff's case; I don't need to bother
about it."
Is that the
bundle?
MR VIJAY: Your Honour,
that -- we had one voluminous
document from RSP.
I have made it available to
everyone. I didn't
have time go through, but -- I was
not going to mess
up, but having gone through the last
weekend, there are
some relevant ones, and mostly in
view of what the
witness says, he wants to refer to
them, I can have
them quickly organised, your Honour --
(simultaneous
speakers - unclear) --
MR SREENIVASAN: -- I
think the question -- my learned
friend --
MR VIJAY: Full
disclosure has been made.
MR SREENIVASAN: -- they
will not be referring to. If it is
in that bundle, I
will go and look at it again.
MR VIJAY: We have given
disclosure of them. Yes, we took
the original
position, not relevant. But the last
weekend, we went
through; there are a few that we need
to refer to, in
light of exactly what the witness said,
12:11 your Honour.
COURT: All right.
Let's move on.
MR SREENIVASAN: So it's
not in evidence, your Honour,
because it's not in
an agreed bundle. It has been
expressly put
forward on the basis that it will not be
referred to as part
of the plaintiff's case. There has
been no amendment to
AEICs, and there has been no
amendment to
pleadings.
MR VIJAY: Your Honour,
basically they wanted me to compile
a document which I
think will be this thick --
COURT: Either you
arrange for it to be admitted, or else --
MR VIJAY: I will
arrange for it to be admitted, your
Honour.
COURT: All right.
MR TAN: Let me move on,
your Honour.
Let's deal with
mechanical and electrical works,
otherwise known as
M&E works.
Do you agree
also that it is not Poole Associates'
scope of works to
prepare the M&E drawings?
A. I am not qualified
to comment on whose scope of work any
of this is. I am
not in any way, shape, or form an
expert. I leave it
to the project manager, Mr Poole, to
take this forward.
I did not sit there and say, "Who is
responsible for
what?" The project manager is
responsible for the
project in its entirety, and insofar
12:13 as there are experts
needed, he should be the person
monitoring and
controlling them. I do not have the
skill to do that.
That is why we hired a project
manager.
COURT: The problem here
is, Mr Vijay, you have to make it
quite clear.
Someone may be the project manager, but if
the architect and
the engineer delay, the -- you must
show, right, that
this is the fault of --
MR VIJAY: The burden is
on them, if they are pushing the
responsibility or
the blame to anybody else.
COURT: No, no, no, you
are saying that he is responsible
for not -- ensuring
that there is no delay.
MR VIJAY: Yes, your
Honour.
COURT: So you've got to
show that your guys were ready and
he was responsible.
Supposing you hired an architect --
and I'm not talking
about this particular architect --
supposing you hire
an architect who is slow, all right?
The project manager,
if he writes all the letters and
shows that he has
done his job, are you holding him
responsible for the
delay?
MR VIJAY: If he can
show that he has written all the
letters, then --
COURT: I'm just giving
you the best scenario.
MR VIJAY: Yes, your
Honour.
COURT: In this case, my
question is, were the architects
12:14 slow? Were the M&E
guys slow in submitting, in
finishing their
work? Nothing is before us on that.
Somebody must be
responsible; all right? But his point
that he is
responsible as a coordinator.
MR VIJAY: Yes.
COURT: But a
coordinator is not responsible for delays
effected by other
people all the time. So we must see
what was the cause
of the delay.
MR VIJAY: Yes, your
Honour.
COURT: So supposing the
structural engineer says that there
is a delay because
you changed your specifications; then
somebody has got to
be responsible for that. It can't
be the project
manager if a client changes the
specifications.
A. Your Honour, may I
add a comment --
COURT: Yes.
A. -- as to why Mr
Poole is responsible?
COURT: Sure.
A. There are two
reasons why we had delays. One reason was
because of the
complexity of this micro-piling,
requiring --
MR VIJAY: Who is
responsible for the complexity?
A. The second reason
was a little bit different, your
Honour. The reason
we certainly were able to go,
towards the end of
August, early September, was because
12:15 it was realised,
after four months, that there was a
very simple solution
to all of these approvals.
COURT: That's a
different point entirely.
A. But it removed the
need to get the approvals, and it
allowed us to
proceed with the restaurant. Mr Poole sat
on this case for
four months and did not come up with
the simple solution
of dividing the restaurant and the
microbrewery as two
separate projects. This is a very,
very simple solution
--
COURT: Now, now --
A. -- that a man of his
talent should have known
immediately.
COURT: Now, are you
alleging negligence? Then you bring
evidence to show
that project managers would know how to
do this. You have
to show some evidence. You cannot
just allege -- he is
talking about a different point
entirely. That's
why I say you all have to organise
your case properly.
It's in his affidavit; I'm aware of
that. The simple
solution -- (simultaneous speakers -
unclear) --
A. The solution was
found --
COURT: But that's a
different thing entirely.
A. My apologies. I
have not --
COURT: That's a
different thing entirely. Mr Tan is
talking about all
the structural plans, et cetera.
12:16 MR VIJAY: Yes.
COURT: What was the
cause of the delay? Somebody must
explain to me, what
was the cause of the delay? I know
you are alleging
that he is the project coordinator --
MR VIJAY: Yes.
COURT: -- but were
there problems in the preparation of the
plans? Otherwise,
you're holding a project manager
responsible if you
have hired a lousy structural
engineer -- I'm not
talking about this engineer; I'm
talking about
generally.
MR VIJAY: There was a
series of correspondences which are
in the bundle we --
COURT: What do they
prove?
MR VIJAY: They prove
that the architects were writing to Ed
Poole to say that --
you know, "These can't be
submitted, do this,
do that", and he was arguing with
them and so on and
so forth, your Honour. That's what
he -- I believe the
witness --
COURT: Well, what's
wrong with an interior designer arguing
with an architect
over plans? Architects are not always
right; interior
designers are not always right.
A. The question that
I'm referring to is that Mr Poole was
trying to maintain
our position of eliminating the
corridor between the
Pump Room and The Highlander, and
the architect was
saying, "This will never pass URA;
12:18 please do not do
that." And the argument went on for
some time.
COURT: This is all
evidence from the --
MR VIJAY: We have given
reasons for delaying the affidavit,
your Honour.
COURT: Are you calling
them as witnesses?
MR TAN: They are not
calling RSP, your Honour.
MR VIJAY: They have
refused to come as witnesses.
COURT: Are you
accepting all that at face value, without
examining?
MR SREENIVASAN: Your
Honour, I come back to my earlier
position, which is
why I said my learned friend admits
the document. If I
can touch on the genesis of the RSP
documents, it is our
case -- which is my understanding
from discussing with
Mr Ong -- that normally, for
construction delay,
to look at the critical path.
COURT: Yes.
MR SREENIVASAN: And the
critical path in this case that
really messed things
up was the micro-piling, which
means structural
comes -- becomes very important. There
were no structural
documents, no structural drawings,
that were
disclosed. So we asked for that. And once
they were disclosed
-- and as my learned friend said,
they were disclosed,
but very late in the day, which is
why Mr Tan needed
the first day off to look at it -- I
12:19 took the position,
unlike Mr Tan, that I didn't need to
look at it
carefully, because if you are not calling RSP
to admit those
documents, if you don't call the maker, I
just will put you to
strict proof. So you want to call
-- you want to put
those documents in, you have to call
RSP.
Since my learned
friend then put it in his letter
that they would not
be referring to those documents,
those documents are
not in play. If my learned friend
then wants to
cross-examine Ed Poole on it and say,
"This is what RSP
told you, this is what RSP told you",
he can try; but then
I will make the submission at the
end of the day.
If they now want
to bring RSP in, then we will be
best cross-examining
RSP on it. Insofar as the
schematic of work is
concerned, I mean, architects or
IDs do their
architectural drawings -- and this is
common knowledge --
it then goes to a structural
engineer, who comes
up with the structural drawing. In
a perfect world, the
architectural drawing is supported
by a structural
drawing, and you go on. In the normal
world, that
structural engineer is going to come back
and tell the
architect, "It can't be done. Go and
change."
For example, if
an architect puts a suspended ball
12:20 in the middle of
this room with no means of support, the
structural engineer
is going to tell him, "Sorry, we
can't design a
structure for that." Or if the architect
puts a huge 20-ton
marble standing on a 2-inch-wide
concrete beam, then
again, the structural engineer is
going to tell him,
"Mr Architect, it can't be done."
So there is a
to'ing and fro'ing. Or, as my learned
friend seems to
suggest, it could be that Ed Poole
designed something
impossible to implement. It could be
either. Or it could
be, as this witness has quite
accurately and
honestly pointed out, if you have to put
all this brewing
equipment into this particular space,
then your floor
loading, in terms of kilonewtons per
metre, would have
certain impacts.
I don't know.
But if RSP is not called, and we have
Mr Graham's
evidence, then we have got no engineering
evidence, we have
got no claims evidence, we have got
nobody who has given
evidence of what is the critical
path, then I think
Mr Vijay has a problem.
COURT: All right.
Mr Tan,
continue.
MR VIJAY: I'll leave it
to -- whatever I say will be --
COURT: By all means.
If you want to respond to
Mr Sreeni --
MR SREENIVASAN: I don't
mind if you prompt your witness --
12:21 by accident, not
deliberately.
MR VIJAY: Your Honour,
the correspondences between RSP and
Ed Poole will make
things -- I think they are quite
clear, and they will
speak for themselves, I believe.
As to whether,
as a project manager, he can just
blame it on RSP,
again, I believe our clients have
evidence, and the
documents will make it clear. These
are documents we got
it last minute --
COURT: Who is alleging
delay?
MR VIJAY: My client,
your Honour.
COURT: You have to
prove it.
MR VIJAY: And we are
proving that -- we are establishing
that at the end of
the day, the project manager,
Ed Poole's
responsibility.
COURT: Why?
MR VIJAY: It was he who
was supposed to coordinate
everything and put
everything in -- first of all, draw
up a milestone
chart, which never existed; appoint --
his contract says
appoint an engineer, whoever you need,
and the charges to
be separate; he never did. So the
clients were left to
go look for an architect because he
couldn't submit, so
they had somebody coming in to
submit; then he --
then --
COURT: Your clients
knew that there was no architect, as
Mr Tan said, before
the contract was signed.
12:23 MR VIJAY: There was no
-- he was aware subsequently that
Ed Poole was not
qualified to make submissions.
COURT: Why do you use
the word "subsequently"; it is before
the contract has
been -- (simultaneous speakers -
unclear) --
MR VIJAY: -- before the
contract --
COURT: So why do you
use the word "subsequently"?
MR VIJAY: Subsequent to
their first meetings and
discussions, or
whatever --
COURT: No, no, no,
let's get -- (simultaneous speakers -
unclear) --
MR VIJAY: Okay. Yes.
COURT: -- the pleaded
case. This complaint about him not
being an architect
is irrelevant, because --
MR VIJAY: It is
irrelevant, your Honour. He is a project
manager here.
COURT: Yes, he --
MR VIJAY: Yes.
COURT: Your clients
knew already, before the contract was
signed, and that's
the only contract you have pleaded --
(simultaneous
speakers - unclear) --
MR VIJAY: -- I don't
want to say too much, because I would
be giving --
literally giving the evidence. But just
bear with me. All I
will say is this: The emails, the
documents will
clearly show --
12:23 COURT: I am not
questioning you. I asked Mr Tan to
continue; you popped
up to speak.
MR VIJAY: Okay. I
don't want to be --
COURT: Don't worry.
Let's move on.
MR TAN: Okay. I'll
just quickly wrap up on this M&E issue.
Can you please look
at the first defendant's bundle of
documents, page 68.
Now -- you are
not there yet?
A. I'm working on it.
The first is the
affidavit.
Q. It's a blue-spined
document with a beige cover on the
front.
A. A beige cover on the
front. This one here?
Q. Yes.
A. Where do I go?
Q. If you look at the
bottom half of that page, it is an
email from Shaharin
Abas Koh. Shaharin Abas Koh is the
plaintiff's general
manager?
A. Basically the
restaurant manager. He did not handle the
brewery, he did not
handle the kitchen.
Q. If you look at that
email, you will see that he
basically spells out
the introduction of Project
Portfolio
Engineering, who are the M&E engineers?
A. Yes.
Q. And the scope of
works that they had to undertake,
12:25 correct? So these
works were done within Poole
Associates's scope
of works, just to confirm that,
air-conditioning and
--
A. Monitoring of these
through the monitoring of the other
experts are very
much part of the project manager's
scope of work.
Mr Shaharin Abas
Koh is a man who runs a restaurant.
He has no idea what
this means whatsoever. The expert
that we had on board
from basically the beginning of May
until the end of
August, the only expert we had on
board, the person we
relied on entirely is Mr Poole.
So Mr Abas Koh,
the restaurant manager, is not in
the business of
appointing M&E engineers. He had to do
it because we were
not given the support that we were
looking for from Mr
Poole.
Q. But it appears that
your restaurant manager knows more
about M&E works than
you do. He has actually spelled
out the M&E works
here?
A. Well, frankly,
everybody on the planet knows more about
M&E works than I do,
but he did not spell it out. It
was spelled out for
him, I presume, by the experts,
certainly not by Mr
Poole.
Q. Very well. Let's
move on. Can you also confirm,
Mr Graham, that the
M&E drawings were only issued
in September 2006?
12:27 A. I think that is a
matter of fact and I'm prepared --
Q. The answer is yes.
A. I would accept your
comment on that.
Q. Let's now move on to
your pet topic, project management,
shall we?
In your
affidavit you have given evidence or you
have claimed that
Poole Associates has been engaged as
project manager
before. Which projects are these?
A. I believe he was a
project manager for Cafe Society,
I believe he was a
project manager for China Jump,
I believe he was a
project manager for The Highlander.
Q. The Highlander as
well, okay. And the basis of your
belief is?
A. His standard
contract says that he is in fact the
project manager, and
this is a contract that apparently
he uses for every
project of this nature.
Q. So that is your only
source of belief, am I correct?
Nobody else has told
you that Poole Associates has acted
as project manager
before?
A. I have no other
experience of Poole Associates except
the unfortunate
experience I have had through this
company.
Q. No, but my point is
nobody has told you that Poole
Associates have
acted as project managers before?
A. It is standard in
the industry. I have never seen
12:28 a project for a
restaurant, and I have to admit my
limitations are only
six or seven or eight or even ten
restaurants, I have
never seen one where the ID was not
the project manager,
it is endemic. This is a small
business, a small
project and, in my experience, the
idea has always been
the project manager.
Now has somebody
come to me and said, "Ed Poole is
a great project
manager and he did that"? No.
Q. So Clark Martin
never told that you Poole Associates
were his project
manager in his other projects?
A. Yes, he did.
Q. I just asked you
whether anyone told you that Poole
Associates had acted
as project manager.
A. And I mentioned the
ones -- I mentioned them, Cafe
Society, I mentioned
China Jump. These are Clark
Martin's projects.
Those are the only ones I know of
and Clark Martin
specifically told me that Ed Poole was
project manager.
It was also
implied, but I have to say it, nothing
in writing, that he
was the project manager for
Brewerkz, but I have
no way of proving that one way or
the other, and one
of the reasons why we hired him was
because of his
experience with Brewerkz.
Q. So let's recap; your
source of belief that Poole
Associates had acted
as project manager is two; one is
12:30 that it's standard
terms of contract -- yes? Yes?
A. Yes.
Q. The second basis is
that Clark Martin told you
specifically that he
had engaged Poole Associates as
project manager?
A. Yes.
Q. I'm going to show
that you're wrong on both accounts.
Did you leave Mr
Clark Martin to negotiate the
contract with Poole
Associates?
A. I left Mr Clark
Martin to negotiate the price. I said,
"Can you get a
discount off the 75,000?"
Q. You didn't ask him
to negotiate on the terms and
conditions, did you?
A. I did not.
Q. Isn't it correct
when Clark Martin first introduced
Poole Associates to
you, they were introduced as
a designer, not a
project manager?
A. Every individual in
this industry is called the
designer. No one
goes around saying "the designer and
project manager",
"the designer and project manager".
It is much more
elegant, it is much more prestigious to
be a designer.
Everybody wants to be a designer and,
therefore, one
always refers to them as "the designer".
Project
management, unfortunately, because it's
a sadly
underestimated activity, doesn't have the same
12:31 status as "designer"
and, therefore, one always calls
Tchi Mun of Salim
Tchi Mun "the designer", we always
call May Ann of
Cubic Deco -- or whatever, we call her
"the designer", and
we have always called Mr Poole "the
designer".
But the fact is,
in every single restaurant I have
ever seen, the
designer is always the ID, because simply
there is no
reasonable alternative.
Q. No reasonable
alternative?
A. To my mind there's
no reasonable alternative for a small
project like this.
Q. Wouldn't you agree
with me that if the designer says,
"Project management
is not part of my scope of works",
he doesn't have to
carry out project management?
A. Frankly, anything
this small, to hire an independent
project manager is
not reasonable. The idea is so
influential on
choice of everything, on selection of
suppliers, on making
the thing work, that to actually
have two separate
jobs for a half million or
1 million-dollar
project is unthinkable, and certainly
to me it's
unthinkable.
I stress
repeatedly, I am not an expert, but I have
never seen it and
certainly my expectations were
categoric, Mr Poole
was our project manager and from
day 1 and, if you
look, he is writing to the people
12:32 dealing with the
brewery, he is writing to the people
dealing with the
kitchen, he is writing to everybody, he
is performing his
project management function.
He was not the
designer, he was the designer and
project manager, and
I think the documentation is
categorically clear
on that.
Q. Categorically you
say that. It is a bold statement. We
will take you on on
it.
Let's take a
look at Clark Martin's affidavit of
evidence-in-chief.
Look at paragraph 7 of Clark
Martin's affidavit
of evidence-in-chief, in the second
volume of the
plaintiff's bundle of affidavits. At the
first tab there you
will see it.
Let's look at
paragraph 6, okay? Now, Mr Clark
Martin in paragraph
6 is referring to Ed Poole as the
designer for Cafe
Society and The Highlander, do you
agree with that?
A. I have repeated to
you that Mr Martin has personally
assured me that Ed
Poole was the project manager for
every one of these
projects.
I have stated
that it is common parlance to use the
words "designer" as
a shorthand, an elevated status
shorthand, when
referring to people like Mr Poole.
If you are
asking me does this say that Ed Poole was
a designer, yes, Ed
Poole was a designer is what is
12:34 written here.
Q. And if you take a
look at page 62 of your affidavit of
evidence-in-chief.
A. Of Clark Martin?
Q. Of your affidavit of
evidence-in-chief, at page 62, this
is an email on 16
April 2006 from Clark Martin to both
you and Chris
Shelley, and do you see the last paragraph
of that email?
A. "The designer, Ed
Poole", that one?
Q. Yes. Clark Martin
is also referring to Ed Poole as the
designer, not as --
A. We all refer to Ed
Poole as the designer. That's what
he wants to be
referred to as, because design is -- but
the fact is, when
you analyse the documents, he didn't
just do the design,
he was actively involved in dealing
with the brewery,
with the kitchen, he was actively
involved in dealing
with RSP, he was actively involved
in dealing with
everybody.
He was the
project manager, and there was nobody
else around remotely
qualified to be project manager.
There was only Mr
Poole. And had Mr Poole said to us,
"Where is the
project manager", we would have hired one.
Q. Well, my point to
you is, Mr Graham, you knew right from
the beginning that
Poole Associates were being
approached for
designing work and not project
12:35 management -- "yes"
or "no"?
A. Absolutely not.
Q. And this issue of
project management was only fabricated
in February 2007
when Poole Associates were chasing for
payback, do you
agree or disagree?
A. I disagree.
Q. Let's take a look at
the contract again --
A. Mr Poole's contract?
Q. Mr Poole's contract
-- well, Poole Associates's
contract, at page
118 of your affidavit. Read the first
line -- read it.
A. "Poole Associates
Pte Ltd will meet with the
client's project
manager" --
Q. Let's stop there,
"will meet with the client's project
manager" -- did you
see that when you signed the
contract?
A. I did indeed.
Q. You did?
A. At that moment in
time, I was the client's project
manager. This is
amusing, but, in fact, the term
"project manager" is
project coordinator. It's
something which is
regularly given to various people,
consultant, project
coordinator or whatever.
The client's
project manager was Mr Shaharin, it was
me, at one point, it
was my wife. There's only one
12:37 qualified project
manager, and that is Mr Poole, and
there are 20
paragraphs in this same contract which
specifically assign
project management responsibility to
him.
This is just a
little -- it's just how we
co-ordinate with the
client. If you read it, there's 20
different areas
where Mr Poole is undertaking to do
project management
work and Mr Poole, to a greater or
lesser degree, did
try to do that.
Q. Let's take your
statement from that. You were the
project manager at
that point in time?
A. I was the person in
the client with whom he was
co-ordinating and,
therefore, I was handling the project
within the client at
that moment in time.
Q. No, were you The
Pump Room's project manager prior to
the signing of this
contract? Let's deal with it one
step at a time.
Prior to the
signing of this contract, were you the
client's project
manager -- sorry -- The Pump Room --
A. I was the person
within the -- let me be very specific
with what I'm saying
here; the person within the company
with whom our
official designer and project manager has
to co-ordinate is
the client's project manager. He has
no business trying
to duplicate, second guess or
otherwise undermine
the responsibility of Mr Poole to do
12:38 the technical work
of project management.
Q. Answer my question.
My question is; were you the
client's or The Pump
Room's project manager --
A. I was the point of
contact. I was not project
management, managing
in the sense of being
a professional
qualified project manager for
a construction
project. No one in The Pump Room was
ever thus qualified.
Q. Let's deal with this
contract. This contract is moving
forward, not talking
about the past.
It says here:
"Poole
Associates Pte Ltd will meet with the
client's project
manager."
Surely a plain
reading of that envisages that,
throughout the
course of the contact, moving forward,
Poole Associates
would meet with the project manager and
not that he was
undertaking the project management --
yes?
A. The contract is
extremely specific on exactly what
Mr Poole was
undertaking, and those specificities are
the guts of project
management.
Q. Okay.
A. These are specifics,
not generalities. He specifically
undertook many, many
areas where he materially failed to
perform, and I'm
sure we will be going through those in
12:39 great detail.
Q. And, having seen
this, when you signed the contract, you
then went ahead to
engage a project manager, C&P
Contracts
Consulting?
A. Can we get some
timing clear? I sent the contract in
early July. Mr
Poole was working with us from
early May. By the
time we got an individual to come and
help us with the
catastrophe we were facing in terms of
getting things
organised, it was late August.
This was four
months after we have started.
Q. So early after you
signed the contract?
A. Two months after I
signed the contract.
Q. Let's take at look
C&P's contract, shall we?
A. Can you give me the
reference? Is it 140?
Q. That's page 137 of
your affidavit.
This contract is
dated 21 August 2006. Do you agree
with me that you
were looking for a project manager as
early as early
August 2006, and, if you want, I will
refer you to the
email in question.
A. Is it the one from
Shaharin to me, talking about Mr Fred
Wong?
Q. That's correct.
A. That email is a very
specific email as I recall. What
it is saying is we
are struggling with this micro-piling
and there is someone
that I think Mr Shelley has met who
12:41 has some ideas on
whether or not micro-piling is
necessary, so
perhaps we can avoid the need for
micro-piling, and Mr
Fred Wong was introduced to
somebody who may
have some ideas on how to avoid the
need for
micro-piling.
There was no
question in that email, as far as I can
remember, that we
were looking for a project manager.
We had problems,
we had difficulties, it was
basically falling
apart, and we needed some help, and
this fellow was put
forward as somebody who might be
able to give us some
help, because it certainly wasn't
working very well
under Mr Poole.
Q. Did you approach Mr
Frederick Wong and C&P Contract
Services Pte Ltd in
early August 2006? That's the
question.
A. No, I did not.
Q. Did The Pump Room
approach Frederick Wong and C&P
Contract Services
Pte Ltd in August 2006, early August
2006?
A. My understanding,
and I was not --
Q. It's a "yes" or "no"
question.
A. Well, I can't give a
"yes" or "no" question.
My understanding
was that The Pump Room approached
Mr Wong to ask about
a specific question to do with
micro-piling. That
is my understanding. My only
12:43 understanding,
frankly, is the email you have got.
I was not at all
familiar with anything else. My entire
understanding is
that one email.
Q. Let's take a look at
page 137, C&P Contract Services.
Now you look at
that, under "Job scope", 2.1.1:
"Assist and
advise owner on all aspects of the A&A
project" -- right?
Did Frederick Wong do that?
A. He assisted and
advised where necessary.
Q. Did he also assist
and act as your representative in
communicating and
dealing with all relevant parties in
the A&A project?
A. He did assist.
Q. I can go through all
the entire contract, but I think
what I want to get
to is 2.3, "Project management".
Isn't it correct
that C&P Contract Services Pte Ltd, as
you can see at 2.3,
were undertaking the project
management work --
they didn't call themselves designers
did they?
A. The key word is
"assist". They did not say, "I'm going
to take over this
and do it."
We are
struggling, we are falling apart, there are
things that are just
not happening, and we need somebody
who is there, as
opposed to not there all the time, who
can give us some
advice, so we hired somebody on
a consulting basis
to advise and assist where we needed
12:44 it.
Mr Wong himself
will come and tell you exactly what
he was doing, and Mr
Wong will tell you himself that the
last thing he
undertook was the project management of
a contract of this
scale, (a) when he was waiting to
move to another job,
and, (b), when he was paid a fee of
$10,000, which is
not appropriate and in any way, shape
or form for this
level of commitment -- assist and
advise consultancy
--
Q. That is a private
contractual arrangement between
parties in terms of
fees. We are not interested in
that.
Let me deal with
this why you take issue with assist
owner (?). Let's
work through this; if you didn't have
a project manager on
site, hypothetically, would you
agree that the owner
would then have to do the overall
project supervision?
A. We had a project
manager. It was Mr Poole --
Q. No, my question is
hypothetically, if no project manager
was appointed for
the project, who would be responsible
for the overall
project supervision?
A. I would guess the
answer to that is the board of
directors.
Q. The owner, isn't it?
A. There is no one
owner.
12:46 Q. The owner meaning
the employer of the project?
A. There is no one
owner. The company is the owner, the
company is called
The Pump Room Pte Ltd and there are
20 shareholders and
four directors.
The board of
directors I would say would be
responsible for
immediately appointing a project
manager, if there
was not one.
Q. Are Poole Associates
the owners of The Pump Room?
A. No, they are the
project managers.
Q. Let's go back to my
question again; if you didn't have
a project manager,
The Pump Room would be responsible
for supervising the
entire project, yes?
A. The Pump Room is a
company, it is not capable.
Q. Then I will move on;
if there was no project manager,
The Pump Room would
be responsible and/or its board of
directors, for
overlooking the entire course of the
project, do you
agree with that?
A. I would suggest The
Pump Room would be responsible for
immediately
appointing someone to do that, and that
someone should be
called a project manager. You cannot
have a board of
directors all responsible for analysing
all the costs of the
project. They don't have the
skills --
Q. Let's leave aside
who should be appointed. I'm just
saying, in the
absence of a PM, project manager, who
12:47 does all these tasks
here at 2.3.1 --
A. They are simply not
done. If there's nobody there to do
them, they are not
done.
Q. Well, my case is
simply this, Mr Graham, since you are
not answering my
question, I'll just put it to you that
a project manager
actually assists the owner in the
overall project
supervision -- would you agree or
disagree?
A. A project manager
carries out the overall project
supervision and
reports to the company.
Q. Correct. So he is
the owner's representative on site,
yes?
A. He is the project
manager.
Q. Yes, but he
represents the owner, yes?
A. He's working on
behalf of the owner.
Q. He takes
instructions from the owner?
A. He gives advice to
the owner, he takes instructions from
the owner.
Q. He reports to the
owner?
A. He reports to the
owner.
Q. So he is an agent of
the owner?
A. This is a legal
term. I would not argue with that.
Q. Okay. And all this
work that I have just described,
Frederick Wong from
C&P Contracts Pte Ltd, carried it
out -- yes?
12:48 A. No, Mr Wong helped
us firefight/troubleshoot areas where
we had problems. Mr
Wong's two specific areas of skills
were because we were
having such difficulty getting our
approvals through,
he tried to help us with that, and,
because the
contract, the various variations here, there
and everywhere were
so complicated we didn't know what
the heck was coming
from where and what to pay.
So he helped us
on two things; one technically
getting the
approvals through for the various things we
had to get from the
URA and so on and, secondly, keeping
track of what was
being spent out there and telling us
whether or not the
invoices we were receiving from Mason
Works were
appropriate to be paid.
That's what he
helped us do. He did not take over
overall guidance of
the project.
Q. But he carried out
the works as described at 2.3 of
C&P's contract
services contract? He carried those out,
didn't he?
A. In fact he did not
work with me, he worked with my wife,
but I would say that
to a degree, to a greater or lesser
extent, he did
something in most of these areas.
He was working
on an ad hoc basis and he did what he
could do as and when
a problem popped up. But I think
Mr Wong is much more
capable of being very specific in
what he did and did
not do than I am.
12:50 Q. Let's look at how
people in the project treated Poole
Associates.
COURT: Are you starting
on something new?
MR TAN: Yes, your
Honour. I am on a subpoint, but maybe
it's an appropriate
juncture to take a break here.
COURT: All right. Come
back at 2.15.
(12.50 pm)
(The
luncheon adjournment)
(2. 31 pm)
COURT: Yes.
MR VIJAY: Your Honour,
we have together the emails with
RSP, in a bundle,
and I marked it as volume 2 of the
plaintiff's bundle
of documents, your Honour.
Basically these
are correspondences between Mr Ed
Poole and RSP, or
from RSP to him, and there are just a
few to -- I think
they are all being called as
witnesses. And the
exception is only item 17, which
anyway was copied to
witnesses who are going to give
evidence in this
court. (Handed).
In some cases Mr
Ed Poole is the sender, and in many
instances he is the
recipient. Only the last two
documents are from
the government department.
Your Honour, I
will also endeavour to call a
representative of
RSP to court if need be, your Honour,
at this -- I have
been calling them; they are aware of
14:32 these proceedings.
They have refused to come, but my
only evidence or
questions to them will be whether they
were have delayed --
whether they were the cause of the
delay in any way.
That's all, your Honour. One
question only. I'm
asking your Honour's -- I'll
subpoena them first,
and at an appropriate time, I will
make the
application, your Honour.
But I believe
these documents -- I don't know what
my learned friend's
positions are, but I tried to have
them all taken
through the ...
COURT: All right.
MR TAN: Your Honour, I
just want to point out this: First
of all, this
allegation that the dispute between RSP and
Poole Associates was
never pleaded. So just by the
introduction of
these documents doesn't make it an issue
in dispute. That's
one.
The second thing
is this, your Honour: These
documents have only
been served to us after lunch. I
have gone through
them very briefly. I don't know
whether all of the
relevant documents are there, so we
want to reserve our
right in respect of this bundle of
documents.
The third point,
in relation to RSP Architects, and
that is this: The
plaintiffs have indicated all along
that they were going
to call RSP Architects as
14:33 witnesses. No
affidavit of evidence-in-chief was filed,
your Honour; no
efforts were made to subpoena them prior
to this trial. So
the point is, they had plenty of time
to prepare for this,
and they didn't. In the fact, when
we were querying
them, your honour, just prior to the
trial, the week
before, because at that point in time we
hadn't received any
receipt of a subpoena or notice that
RSP were going to be
witnesses, we were told quite
unequivocally, your
Honour, that they were not going to
call RSP Architects
as witnesses. So if they are going
to call RSP as
witnesses as well, what I probably need
to do, your Honour,
now, is take further instructions on
that, and we will
reserve our right on that.
COURT: Okay.
Please carry on.
MR TAN: All right, your
Honour, I will continue with
cross-examination.
Before we
continue, Mr Graham, there are a few
things I want to
clarify with you. We don't have much
time for the
evidence. There is quite a number of
witnesses still to
come from your side. I have asked
you several
questions. I would appreciate if you say
"yes", "no",
"maybe". In terms of explanation of your
answer, perhaps what
we can do is, rather than explain
every single answer
that you have given to us, I suggest
14:36 that we leave it for
re-examination. Mr Vijay is here,
your counsel, will
be able to identify what are relevant
and what isn't and
perhaps raise them in re-examination.
Can we do that,
so we can move along a bit faster?
A. Anxious to help.
Q. Thank you.
Now, what I want
to talk about in this segment of
the
cross-examination is the manner in which Pump Room
and its employees,
as well as the other consultants,
treated Poole
Associates.
The first thing
is this: I've shown you an email
from Clark Martin to
you in which he refers to Poole
Associates as
designer; yes?
A. Yes.
Q. Let me refer you to
another document, and this is found
at page 174 of the
agreed bundle, volume 2. Do you have
that page?
A. I do, yes.
Q. Now, what I am
referring you to is that email from you
to Colin Simpson on
the 8th of May. And in this email,
again, you have
identified Ed Poole as the designer.
Yes?
A. Yes.
Q. Let's move on to
another document. Let's go to page 202
of the same bundle
of documents.
14:37 Now, this is an
email from Poole Associates to RSP,
where Poole
Associates have identified themselves as the
designers for the
two projects at Clarke Quay, the two
projects being the
Pump Room and the Highlander.
My question to
you is this: Did you at any time
respond to this
email to say that they were also the
project managers?
A. I did not, as far as
I can recall.
Q. Okay.
A. But I have to repeat
that to me, Mr Poole is called the
designer because
that is what Mr Poole is called.
Mr Poole is the
designer and project manager because
that is what the
contract says.
Q. Yes, you have given
evidence on that.
Let's turn,
then, to page 402 of the plaintiff's
bundle of
documents. That, I believe -- 442.
A. This is mine.
MR TAN: Sorry, your
Honour, I may have identified the wrong
email. Just give me
a second while I look for it.
I apologise, your
Honour, I think I have the wrong
reference there.
Let me just look for the document in
question.
I'm sorry, it's
actually at page 68 of the
1st defendant's
bundle of documents.
A. Not the affidavit?
14:40 Q. No, it's the
beige-coloured document, page 6, we
referred to it
earlier.
A. Right.
Q. Can you look at Mr
Shaharin Abas Koh's email on 31 July?
What he is
essentially doing is introducing Project
Portfolio as the M&E
consultants to the project,
correct -- if you
look at that email?
A. Yes, that's what
he's doing.
Q. Then, when you flip
to the next page, Mr Koh also has
identified other
parties in the project, yes?
A. Correct.
Q. Next to "Ed Poole,
Director, Poole Associates", he
identifies Poole
Associates as the ID consultant.
Did you write to
correct this and say that he, i.e.
Mr Poole or Poole
Associates, were also the project
manager?
A. Mr Poole's title is
"ID" in this context. We do not go
around saying, "ID
and project manager", I think I have
stressed this
frequently --
Q. No, my question --
Mr Graham, remember what I said
prior, answer my
question first, "yes" or "no"?
A. No, I did not.
There was no need for me to do so in my
opinion.
MR VIJAY: Your Honour,
if the witness is going to give
a short explanation,
it's faster that way, rather than
14:42 saving the whole lot
for re, then I can cut my re.
MR TAN: Well, it would
help also, your Honour, if the
witness just answers
my question first.
MR VIJAY: The answer
was whatever qualification short so
that I can save time
--
A. I apologise, I'm not
helping.
MR TAN: So your answer
is no you did not write to correct
that?
A. I did not.
Q. Is there any email
where you or anyone in the project
has referred to
Poole Associates as the project manager?
A. Only in his
contract.
Q. My question was; is
there any email during the course of
the project where
anyone had identified Poole Associates
as the project
manager?
A. There is endless
documentation between Mr Poole
and Sommerville --
there is endless documentation
identifying him as
acting as the project manager.
We never used
the title "project manager" for
Mr Poole, because Mr
Poole is known as the designer,
which is the
designation he prefers.
COURT: So the answer
should be "no", because he says is
there anywhere where
you identify --
A. Well, to be honest,
I can't remember, your Honour.
MR TAN: Isn't it
correct that your own expert, Mr Crispin,
14:43 has identified in
his report C&P Consultants as the
project manager and
not Poole Associates?
A. Well, I do agree
that Mr Crispin did not find any other
title for Fred Wong
in his contract. It's difficult to
call him advise and
assist, so, when you look through
the contract, the
only title that is there is on the
second or third page
on the heading halfway down, called
"project manager".
This does not make him project
manager. Mr Wong
was a consultant and Mr Wong will
identify clearly
what his role was.
Q. The point is, in
March 2007, your expert Mr Crispin
identified C&P
Consultants as the project manager --
yes?
A. Based purely on that
one contract, he was unaware what
happened --
Q. "Yes" or "no", Mr
Graham?
A. He did not identify
-- he named him as project manager,
yes.
Q. So, for all intents
and purposes, everybody in the
project had treated
or had identified Poole Associates
as the designer and
not the project manager -- do you
agree with me?
A. I disagree. They
called him designer, they did not
identify him as the
designer and not project manager.
There is a huge
difference.
14:44 Q. Okay. According to
you, Mr Graham, a project manager
has a number of
duties, and this includes drawing up
a programme of works
-- yes?
A. I would refer to the
duties spelt out in Mr Poole's
contract. It is not
for me to start defining the
project manager's
duties. They are in the contract.
Q. No, my point is
this; is it your case --
A. I am not qualified
to judge the detailed jobs of
a project manager.
I rely entirely on the contract.
Q. Is it your case that
the project manager is required to
draw up a programme
of works?
A. I rely entirely on
what is in the contract. I am not
qualified to make
these comments.
Q. But this is your
case, Mr Graham.
A. My case is that the
project -- the contract that
Mr Poole gave us,
and which we signed, is definitive in
identifying Mr Poole
as a project manager in a series of
areas. Those are
the areas that I, with all due
respect, ask be
respected.
I'm not
qualified to start commenting on what is and
is not project
management work. I am not qualified.
Q. Having looked at the
contract and identifying the things
that Poole
Associates allegedly did not do, i.e. project
management, is it
your case that the project manager is
supposed to draw up
a programme of works -- "yes" or
14:46 "no", or "I don't
know"?
A. A project manager to
me should have begun by
establishing a very
clear timeline on what had to be
done, when it had to
be done.
The project
manager to me should have begun by
drawing up a very
clear budget as to what we should be
expecting in terms
of costs. A project manager to me
should have been
identifying exactly what support was
needed from other
people and identifying those people.
That's the kinds of
things a project manager should be
doing. Mr Poole was
very remiss in most areas.
Q. Okay, let's not
fudge. Let's look at paragraph 27 of
your affidavit of
evidence-in-chief.
A. This is my
affidavit?
Q. Your affidavit of
evidence-in-chief, paragraph 27. In
your affidavit --
are there at page 15?
A. No, sorry I'm at
page 3, where it says that Clark Martin
recommended we use
Ed Poole to be project manager and
designer.
Q. No, paragraph 27 of
your affidavit.
A. 27?
Q. 27.
A. Right.
Q. Do you see that:
"... Ed Poole
failed to carry out the basic
14:47 requirements of
project management."
I'm reading from
the second sentence of that
paragraph:
"He had
established no detailed planning, no
timelines and no
budget. Nothing but drawings and more
drawings were done."
Implicit in that
statement, are you complaining that
Poole Associates, or
rather the project managers, were
supposed to draw up
a programme of works?
A. I have no idea what
you mean by "a programme of works".
To me he should have
drawn up what we call a timeline,
which basically
identifies what has to be done by whom
and when.
He had been
given copies of this by people, it had
been suggested that
this would be appropriate, he had
not done anything
like that.
Q. Let's use your
terminology, "timelines"; your case is
that the project
manager is supposed to draw up
timelines, yes?
A. He's supposed to
manage the project.
Q. My question to you
was; your case is that the project
manager is supposed
to draw up timelines --
A. One aspect of that
is analysing what has to be done when
by whom.
Q. So is he supposed to
draw up a series of timelines --
14:48 "yes" or "no"?
A. He certainly should
be able to know when things have to
be ordered, when
things have to be done. He should be
managing the
project.
Q. Mr Graham, the
question is simple: Is he, the project
manager, supposed to
draw up the time lines? Yes or no?
A. Yes.
Q. Right. Thank you.
Not that difficult.
Did Poole
Associates do that? Did they draw up a
time line for the
work to be carried out?
A. They did not.
Q. Did you ever chase
Poole Associates for time lines?
A. I personally did
not. Mr Shelley did, as far as I am
aware. He actually,
as far as I know, sent him an
example of what
should be done and recommended he do it.
Q. Your case is that
from the very beginning, there was a
rush to meet the
October deadline; yes?
A. I would not say
"rush", because from the beginning, we
actually had plenty
of time. There was a need to get up
and going by the 1st
of October; and beginning, as we
did, in mid-April --
and certainly by early May -- we
still had five
months do it, and five months should have
been more than
adequate. There were complications, but
these were solvable;
five months should have been more
than adequate.
14:50 So "rush", no
more than normal in these situations.
Q. Okay, let's take a
look at Chris Shelley's affidavit.
That is in the
bundle of affidavits, volume 2.
A. I have that.
Q. The third tab. And
I ask you to turn to page 7.
Now, this is
what you are referring to as time
lines. Yes?
A. I think -- Gantt
chart of time lines, or whatever the
phrase is.
Q. And the person who
came out with this time line was
Chris Shelley, not
Poole Associates; yes?
A. This specifically
refers to the brewery, more than
anything else.
Q. No, no. My question
is, the person who came up with
this time line was
Chris Shelley and not Poole
Associates. Yes?
A. That's correct.
Q. Now let's turn to
the next page, page 8, page 9. That
is an email from
Colin Simpson to Clark Martin, Chris
Shelley, and
yourself. And the attachment in that email
can be found at
pages 10 to 14.
Now, this is
also what you would refer to as a time
line, wouldn't you,
at pages 10 to 14?
A. Yes, indeed.
Q. So was this the
agreed schedule in which parties had or
14:52 were intending to
proceed?
A. No, this is an
example by Chris on the kind of thing
that should be done.
Q. And if you look at
that email at page 8 and page 9, do
you confirm that
Poole Associates were not copied in on
this email?
A. I don't know whether
Chris knew Poole Associates at that
particular time, but
I can confirm that this does not
copy Poole
Associates. It only copies internal people.
If I can just look
at that again.
It's Clark,
myself, and Colin. And he has asked for
the owners of the
various bits to be added, because he
doesn't know.
Q. Right. Don't you
agree with me that if these are the
time lines by which
you all had wanted the project to be
completed, the very
least you should have done was to
forward this to the
project manager, or copied him on
it?
Yes?
A. It certainly is
appropriate to pass this to him. On the
other hand, that's a
bit like teaching a grandmother to
suck eggs. He is
the expert, not us.
Q. Let's look at the
first defendant's bundle of documents
again. We'll go
back to that. That's the document with
the beige cover.
Tab 1, page 1.
14:54 That's an e-mail
from Fred Wong to Shaharin, Clark,
and RSP?
A. Yes.
Q. Poole Associates are
not copied in on this email?
A. Yes.
Q. If you look at
paragraph 2, a, b, c, parties had agreed
to complete the
project -- well, to split it in three
parts and to
complete it within those dates:
Highlander, 1st of
October; The Pump Room, 1st of
November; the
microbrewery, 1st of December.
Would I be
correct to say that --
A. Is this suggesting
that Fred Wong is also the project
manager for The
Highlander?
Q. You don't need to
foreshadow my questions. Just answer
my questions.
Now, at
paragraph 2 there is a reference to meeting
by parties, a
meeting by parties. Do you know whether
or not Poole
Associates was at that meeting?
A. In the month of
August, Poole Associates was hardly in
Singapore at all.
What will demonstrate that --
COURT: Please answer
his question.
A. Do I know whether it
was there? I can refer to the
schedule where we
actually identified when he is and is
not in Singapore.
Can I look at that schedule?
Vijay, where is
the schedule which show's Mr Poole's
14:55 presence in
Singapore?
I think in
August he was not present for a minimum
of 14 days.
MR VIJAY: Can you refer
to the third defendant's bundle of
documents.
A. Is this the beige
colour again?
I have it, yes.
This is the passport. Where is the
summary?
COURT: Do you really
want to know whether he was at the
meeting?
MR TAN: No, your
Honour; then we'll move on, actually.
COURT: Yes, because
your point is that they had taken over
project management
--
MR TAN: That's correct
your Honour.
COURT: All right? So
let's not worry about that.
MR TAN: Right, your
Honour.
Then, in that
case, let me quickly refer you to
page 7 of the
bundle, same bundle. You will see time
lines. These time
lines were drawn up by Fred Wong of
C&P?
Yes?
A. Correct.
Q. I'll go quickly to
my point, then: The whole of tab 1
are documents
between Fred Wong and RSP, talking about
the completion date
of the project. I have gone through
14:58 them, I have annexed
them; I have not seen a single
correspondence in
which Poole Associates were copied.
Can you confirm
that?
A. I will take your
word for it.
Q. Now, your case is
that Poole Associates were supposed to
carry out project
management, and they didn't do that;
yes?
A. Correct.
Q. In the entire course
of the project, did you ever ask
Poole Associates or
remind them to carry out these
project management
works?
A. By the time we got
to September, we were so far behind
that our only thrust
was getting the job done. We were
not in the blame
game at that moment in time. I
personally did not
chase Mr Poole to do his job
properly.
Q. Thank you.
Did you ever
tell Poole Associates that if they
failed to carry out
these duties, you would be
appointing C&P to do
their job?
A. I never appointed
C&P to take over their job. I
appointed C&P to
help in whichever way was necessary.
Because our --
Q. In that case --
A. -- our people did
not have the competence to do it.
14:59 Q. In that case, did
you ever point out to Poole Associates
that even with C&P,
project managers -- or project
consultants, you
still expected them to carry out
project management
work, "they" being Poole Associates?
Did you ever tell
them?
A. Poole Associates did
not stop carrying out project
management work.
Poole Associates kept on doing a lot
of project
management work. Fred Wong was filling in
the gaps left by
Poole Associates, in that they were not
doing everything
that they should be doing.
Q. No, so my question
is --
A. But there were many,
many things that Poole Associates
were doing that were
clearly project management work.
Q. We have got to move
alone quickly, like I told you,
Mr Graham. My
question was, did you ever tell Poole
Associates that you
expected them to carry on with
project management,
notwithstanding the appointment of
C&P contracts? Yes
or no?
A. No.
Q. Did you tell Poole
Associates, throughout the entire
project, you
intended to deduct their fees because they
were not carrying
out project management? Yes or no?
A. I did not.
Q. In fact, Mr Graham,
isn't it correct you continued to
pay the invoices
that were rendered to the Pump Room by
15:00 Poole Associates
throughout the entire course of the
project? Yes or no?
A. I continued to pay
every invoice Mr Poole sent, and I
can explain why, if
you give me time.
Q. Now, Mr Graham, you
have a number of businesses, as you
had earlier
testified. You must be a fairly savvy
businessman; yes?
A. That's not for me to
say.
Q. All right. You're
being modest. We shall move on,
then.
In your
experience, do you pay your suppliers when
they give you
defective goods? Do you pay your
suppliers?
A. I can give you an
explanation now as to why we did not
have a fight with Mr
Poole --
Q. No, no, just answer
my question first: Do you pay your
suppliers when they
have given you defective goods? Do
you say, "Well,
okay, I have received defective goods,
but here, I'm going
to pay you in full"?
Have you ever
done that?
A. It is not a normal
approach, and I would not normally do
that.
Q. Do you recall an
email from Poole Associates to you
sometime in November
chasing for an overdue invoice?
A. I do.
15:01 Q. Did you tell him, at
that point in time, "I am not
paying you because
you did not carry out project
management works"?
A. Say that again?
Q. Did you tell him,
when he was chasing for the overdue
invoice in November,
that "I'm not paying you because
you did not carry
out project management works"?
A. Could you possibly
refer me to the exact page of that
invoice?
Q. All right. Let's
take a look at EDP -- this is the
first defendant's
affidavit of evidence-in-chief. 141,
page 141.
A. I'm sorry, I am
struggling here. Give me a second. The
1st defendant. The
1st defendant's affidavit in chief,
yes, page 101?
Q. Page 141.
A. Yes. That is Friday
17 November at 1.55 pm. May
I refer you to my
document, my bundle of documents,
page 276; you will
find that it is dated precisely one
hour before I sent
that document, and you will see
exactly why we did
not anger Mr Poole.
Q. No, but can you
answer my question first --
A. That is the answer
to your question right there.
Q. What is the answer?
A. Page 276 of my -- Mr
Poole spells out quite clearly the
15:04 problems we had with
him in this document. This is my
affidavit, number 2,
agreed bundle of documents,
page 276.
COURT: Which bundle of
documents are you referring to?
MR VIJAY: The agreed
bundle of documents, volume 2, your
Honour.
A. Volume 2 of the
agreed bundle of documents, page 276;
this is dated
exactly one hour before I sent that letter
to Mr Poole.
MR TAN: So your answer
to my question?
A. Is that Mr Poole is
a very difficult, very violent and
very bullying
personality. He has progressively caused
us enormous
embarrassment, and when he threatens us with
extreme
embarrassment and with extreme actions, we are
not in the mood to
inflame his anger any further.
Q. It's not about
inflaming his anger. Why didn't you
point out at that
point in time -- sorry, let me just
rephrase that; did
you point out to him that he was not
carrying out project
management?
A. I am dealing with an
unbalanced aggressive individual --
Q. Answer my question
first before you go on to slander
Mr Poole.
A. I'm sorry, Mr Poole
is slandering himself. I pointed
out that everything
is okay, calm down, don't do
anything rash,
that's what I'm trying to say.
15:05 We are here at
the beginning of November, we are in
such trouble on this
project, we are losing $150,000
a month, and the
last thing I need is Mr Poole, who is
the project manager
and designer, to start creating
problems for us.
The amount of
money we are paying Mr Poole is quite
small in relation to
the $150,000 a month that we are
facing in terms of
loss. So I basically tried to calm
him down, but you
see what I was reading when I was
writing that memo.
Q. Well, the excuse
that you gave, I think it's evident
from the documents,
is that money was tight and not
because Poole
Associates did not carry out --
A. Let me clarify for
you.
Q. No, just answer my
question first, Mr Graham.
A. Let me clarify for
you.
The company was
short of money, progressively, and
it kept going
through the money it had; this meant that
we had to put more
money in. The shareholders were
never short of
money, the shareholders were never unable
to put money in, the
company regularly and frequently
went through its
funds and had to be given more, but, as
of November, at
least $2 million more was put in the
company, so there
was no shortage of funds.
Q. Now, Mr Graham,
isn't it true that the first time you
15:07 raised these
allegations of failing to carry out project
management was in
February 2007, and this was three
months after the
Pump Room had opened for business?
Isn't it true that
this was the first time you raised
with Poole
Associates this allegation?
A. Quite untrue. I
refer you to the memo in early January,
where I said, "Are
you not responsible for project
management? What is
going on here?"
Q. Which page is that?
A. "Am I missing
something? Are you not responsible for
project management,
because the project is not finished,
why are you asking
for being paid?"
Sorry, Vijay,
I'm actually quite tired, so I need to
ask for some help, I
apologise, I will do my best.
This is an early
January document.
COURT: How long more
will you take with this witness,
considering that the
other two counsel would like time?
MR TAN: I am trying to
finish this, your Honour, perhaps in
the next 45 minutes.
A. Can I refer you to
page 301 of my bundle of documents,
this is dated
January. It is asking for payment, and
I'm saying, "Mr
Poole, is the job complete", which of
course it was not,
and he said, as far as he's
concerned, the job
was complete, and I said, "I thought
you were managing
the project, apparently I'm mistaken,
15:09 it's far from
finished, the decoration and all the
principal walls
still to be delivered and placed. As
far as I'm concerned
we don't even have a quote for this
work. Am I missing
something here? Are you only
responsible for the
design element?", clearly indicating
that I believed that
he was responsible for project
management in
February, not March, and I was seriously
complaining I
believe.
Q. And this email was
after the project had opened, or
rather after The
Pump Room had opened for business on
6 December?
A. The Pump Room opened
on 6 December in an unfinished
condition and with
an unfinished brewery. The reason we
opened is that we
were desperate to open because the
cashflow was
horrendous, the project was not finished,
neither the brewery
project nor the restaurant project,
as I think you are
fully aware, because it's said in so
many, many places in
the documentation.
Q. Just to clarify as
well, Mr Graham, after this email,
there was another
invoice rendered by Poole Associates,
their final invoice
-- yes?
A. I'll take your word
for it.
Q. And you made partial
payment on that final invoice, yes?
A. Mr Poole claimed his
staff were starving and we are
nothing if not --
(simultaneous speakers - unclear) --
15:10 Q. Can you answer my
question first -- "yes" or "no"?
A. Yes, I did, because,
again, we were not finished.
Q. Mr Graham, I'm sure
you are familiar with the term
closing the stable
door after the horse has bolted, yes?
A. I think everyone
must be.
Q. Don't you agree
that, if something was not being done
properly it is
common sense to bring it up during the
project and not
after the project has been completed --
yes?
A. By the time it
became an issue, we were in desperate
straits, and I mean
desperate straits.
Q. Answer my question
first, Mr Poole.
A. Our intention was to
solve the problems, not the blame
game.
Q. Exactly.
A. I have to say it was
only with hindsight when we
analysed exactly
what had happened that we realised the
enormity of the
failings of Mr Poole.
Q. In other words,
during the entire course of the project
you didn't think
Poole Associates failed in any aspect
of their work?
A. I think they failed
enormously in many aspects, but
there were many
people failing in aspects, and Mr Poole
simply was supposed
to be the conductor who failed to
conduct.
15:11 Q. Well, Mr Graham, I
will make my submissions. I'm going
to put my case to
you. I'm going to put it to you that
you paid Poole
Associates their invoices because they
carried out their
contracted works -- "yes" or "no"? Do
you agree or
disagree?
A. I disagree.
Q. And I'm going to put
it to you as well that this
allegation that
Poole Associates failed to carry out
project management
is simply a sham to deny or delay
payment to Poole
Associates -- do you agree or disagree?
A. I disagree.
Q. Okay. Let's move on
to the interior design works. Do
you accept that
Poole Associates had sourced for and
looked for certain
materials, direct purchase materials
from Malaysia, Bali
and Yogjakarta?
A. Yes.
Q. And these were for
what we know as fittings, furnishings
and effects or FF+E,
correct?
A. I couldn't argue
with that.
Q. So what he did
essentially for this part of the work was
that he would obtain
quotations from various suppliers
and he would pass
them on to The Pump Room, am
I correct?
A. That is correct.
Q. And The Pump Room
would enter into a direct contract
15:13 with these
suppliers?
A. Mr Poole would
arrange for quotations to be sent by
these suppliers to
The Pump Room and we would accept
those quotations.
Q. Let's take a look at
page 126 of Mr Edward Poole's
affidavit.
A. Poole Associates?
Q. Poole Associates,
the 1st defendant, page 126.
Before that,
let's turn to page 123, look at
pages 123, 124 and
125. These are emails from Poole
Associates to Fred
Wong, setting out a list of these
direct purchase
items, do you see that?
And then at page
126 to 128 he has a table setting
out the individual
furniture or finishing or whatever it
is, a brief
description of it, the vendor, the
quantities required
and the total cost?
A. Yes, I see that.
Q. So this table
essentially sets out the cost that
The Pump Room has to
incur in purchasing the furnishing
fittings and effects
or FF+E, which it's known as in the
industry I'm told.
It is a bit small, your Honour.
COURT: I can see it.
MR TAN: On the
left-hand side you have the pictures and
then you have the
description, the quantities, and then
the amounts.
15:15 Now my case, and
I am going to put it to you and
move on very
quickly, is that, insofar as project
management work is
to be done by Poole Associates, that
was only for the
interior design works, i.e. this FF+E
which is set out at
pages 126 to 128 -- do you agree or
disagree with me?
A. I disagree.
Q. Let's move on to
another topic, i.e. the completion date
of the project.
A. Shall I say why I
disagree?
Q. If you need to
explain, Mr Vijay here can take you
through during
re-examination. I just wanted to put my
case to you and I'll
move on.
Did Poole
Associates ever agree to complete the job
by a certain date?
Did Ed Poole say to you, "I promise
to complete this
project by X day"?
A. No, he did not.
Q. That's why, you look
if you look at his contract, and
that can be found at
page 113 of your affidavit.
A. 113 of his
affidavit? I am looking at his contract in
his affidavit.
Q. 113 in your
affidavit.
A. My affidavit?
Q. Yes. If you look at
the column under "Move in", it says
"To be determined".
15:17 A. 113. It also says
"As discussed at meetings early
2006", and at those
meetings in early 2006, what was
specifically and
clearly indicated to Mr Poole was that
it was our intention
to open by 1 October.
So it may not be
too specific there, but that's what
was said --
Q. One question at a
time. Would you agree with me that at
the point of signing
of this contract the move in date
had not been
determined yet?
A. Mr Poole had not
done the exercise to determine it, that
is correct.
Q. Look through the
contract; you will also see no
contractual
stipulations in which Poole Associates have
to complete their
drawings -- yes?
A. We did not specify
the timetable for Mr Poole.
Mr Poole's job was
to specify the timetable for
everybody.
Q. Sorry, you did not
specify... ? Could you just repeat
that answer again?
A. We did not specify
Mr Poole's timetable. We expected
Mr Poole to specify
the timetable for the entire project
in detail.
Q. Thank you.
A. We specifically told
him October 1 was our opening date.
We did not specify
the track to get there, and that
15:18 target date, I think
was (simultaneous speakers -
unclear) -- five or
six times --
Q. Let's take at look
at page 48 of the same affidavit,
Mr Poole's
affidavit, EDP-3.
This is an email
from the 2nd defendant to Mr Clark
Martin, and, if you
look at the timeline there, they are
saying that if all
the drawings, M&E, structural and
consultancy work
were given to them in the month
of July, they
projected finishing the project in
mid-November -- do
you see that?
A. I see it. I don't
agree with it. And two weeks later
I was specifically
saying that the October 1 date was
still in place.
Q. If you don't agree
with it, fine, we'll move on.
Did Clark Martin
ever forward this email to you?
A. Yes, he did.
Q. So you knew that
even on July 7, before the drawings had
been obtained, there
was no way the project could have
been completed by
mid-November 2006?
A. I am sorry, I do not
agree with that timeline at all.
It is a nonsense.
Four and a half months is ridiculous.
COURT: That's not the
point. He's saying that -- whether
it's nonsense or not
--
A. To me it is
nonsense.
COURT: He's saying that
you all knew that Mason was telling
15:20 you that they were
going to finish in the middle
of November. That's
all he's asking.
A. I was aware that
Mason Works sent that document. Yes,
your Honour.
COURT: Fine, so you are
aware that Mason Works -- next
question.
MR TAN: In fact, if you
look at Frederick Wong's timetable,
at tab 1 of the
first defendant's bundle of documents,
the time lines I
referred you to earlier, at page 7 of
that document --
A. Sorry, page 7 of
which document?
Q. First defendant's
bundle of documents.
Now, at item 12,
"Expected Permit to Work". Do you
see that? That is
November 2006, and that refers to the
structural work,
isn't it?
So by Fred
Wong's own estimation or time lines --
COURT: What page are
you at?
MR TAN: Page 7, your
Honour, of the first defendant's
bundle of documents.
COURT: Okay.
Which time line
are you referring to?
MR TAN: I'm looking at
item 12, your Honour, right at the
bottom, "Expected
Permit to Work". And that's for the
micro-piling and
structural works, your Honour.
Now, you will
see that Fred Wong himself has
15:23 projected November
2006 to start works for the
micro-piling works;
yes?
A. And this was done by
Mr Wong at the end of August, two
months after; two
months, which, frankly, were lost
months, because the
project manager, Mr Poole, was
hardly in town for
July and August. We lost an enormous
amount of time in
July and August because there was
nobody there. Mr
Wong was not there; Mr Poole was not
there.
COURT: Can you please
answer the question that is asked of
you. All right?
Otherwise --
A. I'm sorry, your
Honour.
Please repeat.
MR TAN: That you knew
-- let me rephrase that: That you
knew, by looking at
Fred Wong's time lines, that the
expected piling date
could not have commenced any
earlier than
November 2006; yes?
A. This was drafted in
early September, I believe, by which
time there was
certainly no possibility of us starting
before November the
15th. But if you start in early
July, the case was
quite different then.
Q. So I'm going to put
it to you that everybody knew that
there was no way The
Pump Room could have been opened
for business before
November 2006.
A. Everybody knew in
September. But in May, everybody knew
15:24 we could open by
October the 1st.
Q. Okay. I'm going to
move on to the last --
COURT: Well, what about
the letter of July the 7th from
Mason? That's not
September.
A. My apologies, your
Honour -- the letter from Mason is a
month for this, a
month for that; two months for this
and two weeks for
that.
Essentially, my
contention is this: The design for
The Pump Room
restaurant was available on the 4th of
July, an effectively
finished design for the restaurant.
COURT: That's not the
point --
A. What was -- may I
finish, your Honour?
What was
delaying us was getting the approval
through the
micro-piling process, through the structural
process. If you
separate it, if you separate it into
the restaurant and
into the brewery, that dramatically
changes the
possibility. And my criticism of Mr Poole
was that he did not
address the problems that we were
having, and a man of
his experience should have solved
that.
It only takes
seven days to get approval to go ahead
and build a
restaurant; it takes two months to get
approval to do
micro-piling. If you divide it into two,
everything changes
dramatically. My criticism is that
he did not address
the problems and solve it.
15:25 MR TAN: I don't want to
go into that, your Honour. It's
not pleaded, so --
COURT: Yes. Go on. Go
on.
MR TAN: -- I'll move
on.
The last topic
-- okay, let's deal with it very
quickly, then: Do
you accept that it is The Pump Room's
prerogative to
appoint a contractor? Ie, they have a
right to appoint any
contractor they wish?
A. It is the Pump -- it
is the buyer's prerogative to
appoint. That is
correct.
Q. That's right. So if
The Pump Room wanted to dispense
with tender and
appoint a contractor directly, it would
be entirely -- it
would be entirely within their right
to do so; yes?
A. It would be entirely
within their right to do so.
Q. Likewise, The Pump
Room had absolutely no obligation to
appoint the
contractor recommended; ie, they can ignore
the recommendations
and appoint their own contractors.
Yes?
A. This is assuming
that The Pump Room knows a
contractor --
Q. No, just answer my
question. It's 3.30 --
A. Yes.
Q. -- Mr Sreenivasan
has set me a deadline to finish my
cross-examination
questions; I want to finish it by
15:26 3.45.
A. The Pump Room has
rights to do exactly what it wishes to
do with its own
money, appoint or not appoint a
contractor; correct.
Q. Right. Would you
also agree with --
A. But it is seeking
advice.
Q. Would you also agree
with me that it would be redundant
to call a tender if
a contractor already has been
appointed?
A. I would not agree
with you that it is redundant to call
a tender if a
contractor has not been appointed, and I
will explain to you
why, if I may be given a moment.
Q. Well, I am just
going to move on, Mr Graham.
A. The fact is that a
contractor is not appointed until the
contract is signed
for the actual job. Now,
basically --
COURT: He is moving on.
A. You get a quote,
your Honour, and you need to assess
that quote. And
unless you have alternative quotes, you
cannot assess it.
MR TAN: Mr Graham, how
many projects has Mason Works worked
with -- directly
with Clark Martin? How many projects?
Do you know?
A. I don't know. Four,
three; something like that.
Q. Three, four?
15:27 A. Something like that.
Q. As a percentage to
the number -- or the total number of
projects that Clark
has done, what percentage of these
projects has he
appointed Mason Works?
A. I do not know.
Please ask Clark.
Q. Do you know, as a
percentage of projects, how many
projects that Poole
Associates and Mason Works did
together?
A. Five.
Q. 5 per cent?
A. No, five projects.
Q. Five projects out of
how many projects that Poole
Associates has done
in its 16 years as interior
designers here in
Singapore?
A. I'll leave it to Ed
Poole to answer that question.
Q. Now, Mason Works
were also the contractors for The
Highlander; yes?
A. That is correct.
Q. And they were
engaged by Clark for that project there,
and he has no
complaints about them. Yes?
A. In fact, he is quite
happy. It was an extremely cheap
product; cost less
than $100 a square foot.
Q. Now, at paragraph 7
of Clark's -- Clark Martin's
affidavit of
evidence-in-chief -- do you want to take a
look at that?
Because he says there he agrees that he
15:28 approached Mason
Works to carry out the demolition works
for The Pump Room.
Let's take a look at that.
A. Which page?
Q. Bundle of
affidavits, 1. First page. A short
affidavit, but at
page 2.
COURT: Whose affidavit?
MR TAN: Clark Martin's,
your Honour.
If I read at
page 3:
"Mason Works was
the contractor for Highlander.
When both the Pump
Room and Highlander decided to share
a kitchen, some
demolition work had to be done. Mason
Works did that
particular job and Mason Works was asked
to invoice Pump Room
for that."
We stop there
first.
Do you agree,
therefore, that Clark Martin had
approached Mason
Works directly for the demolition
works?
A. Yes.
Q. And therefore Poole
Associates had nothing to do with
the appointment of
Mason Works for that part of the
work?
A. I actually don't
know, to be honest. I suggest you ask
Mr Martin.
Highlander was about two months in advance,
and therefore he was
more involved. The complication
was that there was
some space being shared by The Pump
15:30 Room and by The
Highlander, and it was unclear exactly
who it was going to
end up with. In the event, we -- we
moved the space to
The Pump Room. So the demolition was
done under a Pump
Room/Highlander umbrella, and then it
was decided that The
Pump Room was the owner of the
space.
Q. Okay.
A. So it was actually
Clark who authorised it, but it was
very much under a
Highlander project, sort of --
Q. Let's go back to the
first defendant's AEIC, at page 48.
That's an email from
Mason Works to Clark Martin. Go
back to that.
A. So we're going back
to the --
Q. First defendant's
affidavit of evidence-in-chief.
A. This is Mr Poole?
Q. Yes -- first
defendant's. It's the one with quite a
number of tabs at
the side.
A. Of the bundle of
documents?
Q. No, the affidavit of
evidence-in-chief, first
defendant's, the
blue one with tabs at the side.
A. I have no tabs.
Q. Okay, right. I'm
sorry, then. Page 48.
A. I'm there.
Q. This email was
forwarded to you, you earlier testified?
A. Yes, I received that
email.
15:32 Q. And you will see
also that the discussion there, for
Highlander and Pump
Room, was not just confined to
demolition works,
was it?
A. Correct.
Q. So I'm going to put
it to you that it was The Pump
Room's intention all
along to appoint Mason Works for
the demolition works
as well as the construction works
for The Pump Room
project. Do you agree or disagree?
A. I disagree that it
was our intention to appoint them
willy-nilly, because
you will never appoint anyone until
you actually have
some numbers in your hand. What I
desired was
competing quotations to be prepared and a
possibility of
negotiating a contract with whoever is
the favourite one.
I have to say
that Mason Works and the relationship
with Clark and the
fact they are working in The
Highlander gave them
what I would call a favoured
position, but it did
not guarantee them the business if
their quotation
failed to live up to our expectations.
Q. Okay.
A. And what distressed
me was when I got the quotation, I
had no basis at all
for evaluating it, because no one
else had been asked
to quote. I needed other quotations
as a basis for
evaluating the Mason Works quotes.
Without other
quotations --
15:34 Q. Okay.
A. -- I had no choice
but to accept the quote they gave me.
Q. Let's pick up
William Lee's affidavit of
evidence-in-chief.
I need to refer to the quotations
that they have given
to The Pump Room.
A. Can I -- William's
--
Q. Lee Ka Ming.
Affidavit of evidence-in-chief of Lee Ka
Ming.
A. What page would you
like me to go to? Which page?
Sorry.
Q. Can you turn to page
19.
A. 19? Sorry, in my
book, Lee Ka Meng is from 160 to 300.
Q. I see. Okay.
Sorry.
A. 19 would be Kenneth
Hugh Jones.
Q. Page 83. Let's take
a look at page 83 first. Sorry.
A. 83 in which
documents -- (simultaneous speakers -
unclear) --
Q. -- the bundle of --
A. Evidence-in-chief?
Q. Evidence-in-chief,
yes.
A. Page 83?
Q. Page 83.
A. I am looking at a
document which is --
Q. Mason Works
quotation to The Pump Room for demolition
works?
15:36 A. Yes.
Q. And that sum is for
$45,300?
A. It is indeed.
Q. And you have earlier
testified that Poole Associates had
nothing to do with
this quotation; yes?
A. I did not testify
that. I have no idea whether they did
or didn't.
Q. Okay. We will ask
-- we will save it for Clark Martin,
then. We'll move
on.
The next
document that I want you to take a look
at -- let's take a
look at page 187 of the same bundle
of documents.
A. 187?
Q. 187?
A. I have it.
Q. Now, this is the
second contract -- or rather second
quotation that Pump
Room sent to -- sorry, that Mason
Works sent to The
Pump Room.
A. Yes, this is --
Q. On the 8th of
September 2006?
A. Correct.
Q. For the fitting-out
works and M&E works?
A. Yes. Right.
Q. And the quotation is
for almost 600,000, you see there?
A. That is correct.
15:39 Q. Can you confirm that
after receiving this quotation, you
asked Ed Poole to
sit down with William Lee to go
through the
quotation and to see if there were any works
that could be
omitted to reduce the cost?
A. You know, I know
it's been mentioned by both Mr Poole
and by Mr Lee. I
don't recall the exact conversation,
but I'm prepared to
say that it went ahead. I
personally don't
recall the exact conversation.
Q. And subsequent to
this quotation, did you look at the
next one, of page
two thousand -- 202 --
A. Sorry, two thousand
--
Q. 202, sorry.
A. 202. Correct.
It was reduced
to --
Q. $474,770.59.
A. Yes.
Q. And this was, of
course, acceptable to you?
A. Well, had I realised
what had actually happened, it
would not have been
acceptable to me. What actually
happened is that Mr
Poole and Mr Lee got together and
went to work on
reducing the cost of the project.
May I suggest
you go to the back page of that
particular project,
474,000, which will of course
contain the summary
of it. And you will see there it is
a summary which
totals to $452,000, 22,608. After GST,
15:40 474,700. The
difference between the two projects is how
much? I will tell
you: $118,400. Exactly how was that
reduction achieved?
With Mr Poole, Mr Lee, working in
concert. It was
achieved by removing, from every single
area, the
provisional amount, subtotalling it in the
page before as
provisional sum, 214, which basically
says these are all
the provisional sums, and not putting
those in the total.
There was not a dollar of saving.
It was an absolute,
frankly, deceitful and frankly clear
indication of
collaboration between Mr Poole and Mr Lee
to fool me and to
deceive me.
I would like
them to tell exactly what saving they
achieved, other than
taking the provisional sums out and
having them
separately subtotalled and subtracted from
the total they asked
me to sign. They fooled me into
believing they had
done $120,000 of savings, and in fact
they had done
nothing of the sort. It is disgraceful.
Q. Now --
A. I signed that
because I believed them. I thought these
people were people I
could trust.
Q. Just keep your
finger on page 215, and look at 200 as
well. Now, this is
the back page of the quotation
dated 8th of
September, and the quotation dated 10th of
September.
A. What am I looking
at?
15:42 Q. Page 200 and 215. I
want you to open to those two
pages.
A. Yes.
Q. And that's the last
page of both quotations?
A. Yes.
Q. Now, you see there,
under "Important Notes", do you
accept that when
they gave you these quotations, what
was excluded was out
of here; ie --
A. In both cases --
Q. -- structural works
-- let me finish -- ie structural
works --
A. Included.
Q. -- M&E works --
A. Included.
Q. -- and
micro-piling. Yes?
A. Where is the
micro-piling?
Q. Okay, piling.
A. Where is the piling?
Specifically,
the difference, I'm sorry to tell you,
is on page 214. The
difference is exact: 118,400.
Your clients
colluded to mislead me. And I'm sorry if
you can't recognise
it. It's there in black and white.
Q. I just want to point
out to you, Mr Graham, that this
allegation of
collusion has not been pleaded --
A. You are advising me
that they made savings. I asked you
15:43 to show me one
saving they made.
Q. No, my point is
this, and my question is this: If you
look at the
"Important Notes", it's clear there were
works being excluded
-- (simultaneous speakers -
unclear) --
A. I'm sorry.
Q. Yes or no?
A. I'm sorry, you said
there were savings; I'm asking you
to demonstrate one
single saving.
COURT: So your answer
should be "no", and that's it. Keep
calm.
So is your
answer "no"?
A. There is not a
single saving. The exact number --
COURT: All right.
A. -- was 114 -- 400 --
COURT: All right. Next
question, please.
MR TAN: This is the
question I asked. If you look at the
"Important Notes" of
both quotations, there were works
that were not
included in the quotation; right?
A. Yes, I looked at
those works.
The first one,
of course not. It's a separate
quotation.
Q. Okay.
A. The second one, they
didn't do that; somebody else did
that.
15:44 "All gas
piping"; it sounds small.
"Construction of
mezzanine floor"; we cancelled
that.
"Upgrading of
incoming ... power source"; sounds
like lunch money.
"All direct
purchase material"; of course. I paid
for that separately.
"All
submissions"; no big deal.
"All other
works", no big deal.
And "All
provisional sum items are base on our best
estimate", which led
me to assume that they were in the
above, and they were
not. They were separate, taken out
to deceive me.
That, I looked
at; I thought, that is $100,000,
$150,000, maximum.
And in fact it worked out at,
frankly,
$800,000-plus.
And that's one
reason why I am upset at this pair
and one reason why I
view them as colluding to deceive
me.
Q. Mr Graham, do you
accept that when Mason Works gave you
this quotation, the
M&E drawings and the structural
drawings were still
not ready?
A. This is --
Q. This is in
September, early September.
A. And Mr Poole's been
working on this since May --
15:45 Q. No, no, my question
is this: When Mason Works gave you
this quotation, do
you accept that the M&E drawings and
the structural
drawings were not ready? In fact, it's
quite clear, you
look at the -- (simultaneous speakers -
unclear) --
A. They say that, but I
have no idea whether or not. Ask
the project manager.
Q. It says here --
"d". Sorry. Let's view it.
"d.
Construction of mezzanine floor. (pending
design information
from consultant)".
Do you see that?
A. We didn't do the
mezzanine floor.
Q. "e. Upgrading of
existing incoming power source, if
required. (pending
information from consultant)".
A. Yes.
Q. Do you see that?
A. I looked at all of
this, and I thought, $100,000.
Maybe 150 --
Q. You assumed that
there was $100,000?
A. Yeah.
Q. Yes, but my point --
or my question is this: When they
gave you this
quotation, do you accept that the M&E
drawings and the
structural drawings were not completed
yet?
A. I accept.
15:46 Q. Thank you.
And when you
received this quotation, did you ask
Poole Associates to
suggest another contractor?
A. Sorry?
Q. When you received
the quotation from Mason Works, in
September 8 and 10,
did you ask Poole Associates to
recommend another
contractor?
A. My assumption was
that -- this is September --
Q. No, answer my
question first: Did you ask --
A. I did not -- I did
not ask Poole Associates --
Q. Thank you.
A. -- to do that.
Q. Did you ask if Poole
Associates had carried out a
tender?
A. My question then,
and my question since --
COURT: Did you, or did
you not?
A. I asked why I had no
basis for evaluating this proposal.
I'm looking at a
proposal for $600,000; I have no basis
for evaluating it.
I asked Mr Poole, "Please, I have no
basis for saying
anything here; I presume. See if you
can do something
about cutting the cost down."
And what got was
this frankly deceitful nonsense
between the pair of
them.
Q. Did you ask Poole
Associates if a tender was carried
out? Yes or no?
Again, it's a simple question.
15:47 A. I asked, "Why am I
looking at a quotation" --
COURT: Did you ask
whether there was a tender?
A. I asked, "Where are
the competing" --
COURT: Did you ask
whether there was a tender,
specifically?
A. I asked, "Where are
the competing tender documents?"
COURT: So you did,
then.
A. Yes.
COURT: Then why don't
you just say so?
A. My apologies.
COURT: He did.
MR TAN: You did. And
did Poole Associates tell you that
they had carried out
a tender, when you asked them that
question?
A. As far as I can
recall, no.
My -- I did not
say "Have you carried out a tender";
I asked the
question, "Where are the other competing
tenders to allow me
to evaluate this? I can't evaluate
this. I need
something. Why haven't I got it?"
Q. Now, what we have
seen in these two quotations is that
-- and the initial
quotation for 599, and subsequently
it's been reduced to
474. I have looked at Crispin's
report, your expert;
he doesn't dispute that 474,770.59
represents a fair
value for the works carried out.
A. May I comment on
this, your Honour?
15:48 COURT: Sure.
A. Why does Crispin, on
the one hand, stand queried for not
having an in-depth,
to-the-dollar accurate, incredibly
sophisticated
analysis of costs, and then we simply pass
over the fact that
he says these two are alike?
Crispin's job was
not to produce a detailed list of
items totalling a
specific sum so that I could then
claim this sum from
Mason Works. Crispin was asked to
do something very
simple. He was asked to give me an
indication whether
or not the pricing in this project
was reasonable. He
was not asked to produce a figure
which I could charge
back to Mason Works, at all.
Crispin was
hammered, over the last two days, for
not having the most
perfect defence. He was hammered
for not having an
ability to work out the cost of each
joint. He was asked
details --
COURT: You are making a
claim in court, and you are
bringing Crispin as
your expert witness. How can --
A. Crispin's exert
witness was not to identify the sum of
money; it was to
identify the fact that there had been
overcharging
generally.
COURT: Thank you very
much.
Let's move on.
MR TAN: The point,
really, that I'm --
COURT: Mr Vijay?
15:50 MR VIJAY: No, no, these
are things that I will submit --
COURT: No, but if he is
saying Crispin is not here to tell
us how much, then
how am I to know how much your clients
have been
overcharged? He came to a figure.
A. Could I have a --
could I have a comment, please?
The figure is --
what we are claiming is not because
it is the correct
figure; it is because it is the only
figure we have
available. Because when we went to Mason
Works to explain to
them that there was a question over
whether the pricing
was fair and reasonable, they
refused to discuss
it. Crispin asked for information to
allow it to be
refined. He asked if we could work with
them.
COURT: I don't think
you should be telling me what Crispin
is asking. Crispin
sat down there and he gave certain
evidence. If you
take the view now that Crispin is not
doing any evaluation
and just saying whether it's
charging more or
less -- (simultaneous speakers -
unclear) --
A. Your Honour, if you
look at the terms of reference --
COURT: Are you relying
on the -- (simultaneous speakers -
unclear) -- of
Crispin or not?
MR VIJAY: Yes, your
Honour.
COURT: He's saying that
--
A. But, your Honour,
may I say, the terms of reference of
15:51 Crispin's report was
to comment on the reasonableness of
the pricing and that
is all. He did a reasonably
professional
assessment of the cost.
COURT: I leave your
witnesses to say what they like, okay,
but, ultimately, Mr
Vijay, if you are appearing before
the High Court, you
must know exactly what you are
claiming and you
have a figure, and now you are telling
me that the role of
the expert witness was merely to see
whether there was
overcharging.
A. But the reason I'm
claiming that figure is because it is
agreed between Mason
Works and ourselves that the
figures that Crispin
produces will be the definitive
figure, but they --
COURT: And this comes
back to my point; what are you
producing Crispin
as, the expert witness or the person
whose figure is
binding?
MR VIJAY: Your Honour,
Crispin --
COURT: I suggest you
think about all this before you
submit, all right,
to be fair to you. Take your time.
All right, you
said Mr Sreeni is chasing you for
3.45?
MR TAN: Yes, your
Honour, and I overshot that a little bit.
I will try and wrap
that up in five or ten minutes, with
a few quick points.
I just wanted to
point out to Mr Graham that Crispin
15:52 doesn't dispute this
474,779, he has not said anything
about that, yes?
A. Which I think is
very fair. If he was biased, he would
have --
(simultaneous speakers - unclear) --
Q. I need to move on
with the question. You also said that
you know that
certain works were not quoted for this in
quotation, so when
they subsequently came in, they came
in as variation
orders, yes?
A. They came in as
variation orders, a dimension above
anything I could
possibly expect. As I say, my
assessment just
looking at it is all these bits and
pieces are quite
small.
Q. And when these
variation orders came in, you tasked Fred
Wong and Shaharin to
take a look at these quotations?
A. I did not ask
Shaharin to take a look at the quotation.
He has no basis for
doing it. My wife asked Fred Wong
would he make sure
he understood what was being agreed
to, so that he could
keep track of what was and was not
done, so that he
could tell her whether he had to pay
the invoices.
Q. In other words,
before you signed the quotation, did
Fred go through the
variation orders?
A. To understand when
they were about, Mr Wong --
Q. No, did he or did he
not? "Yes" or "no"? Yes, he went
through them, no, he
didn't -- (simultaneous speakers -
15:53 unclear) --
A. -- (unclear --
simultaneous speakers) -- as far as
I recall.
Q. Sorry?
A. I believe he went
through some but not all.
Q. Did you ask Poole
Associates to take a look at these
variation orders
that came in subsequently?
A. I did not. But
clearly Poole Associates and Mason Works
worked very closely
on the 600,000 --
COURT: Nobody asked you
about these details. Otherwise we
will never finish,
all right. Next question.
MR TAN: I am going to
quickly wrap up my case. I'm going
to put a series of
questions to you, and you can either
agree or disagree.
You don't have to explain it any
more, Mr Graham. I
just need to put my case to you.
I'm putting it
to you that Poole Associates were
never required to
submit drawings to the authorities --
do you agree or
disagree?
A. Poole Associates
were required to --
Q. No, it's just "yes"
or "no". We'll go through this,
I just want to put
my case to you --
A. Directly? You mean
directly? Yes.
Q. The right answer.
I'm also putting to you that Poole
Associates were not
responsible for the structural
works -- "yes" or
"no"?
15:54 A. Directly, no.
Q. No they are not
responsible directly for the structural
works?
A. The project manager
-- (simultaneous speakers -
unclear) --
COURT: That's what he
said.
MR TAN: Yes, your
Honour.
I am also
putting to you that the 1st defendants
were not required to
carry out project management of the
entire project?
A. I refer you to the
contract.
Q. How about just
saying "yes" or "no"?
A. They were
responsible for project management and they
sued me for the full
--
COURT: No, he didn't
ask you whether they sued you. We
have to move on.
It's either "yes" or "no".
MR TAN: I am also going
to put to you that insofar as
project management
was concerned, at best, Poole
Associates' scope of
work was limited to the FF+E
works -- do you
agree or disagree?
A. Disagree.
COURT: That's the way.
Move on.
MR TAN: I'm also going
to put to you that the
1st defendants, i.e.
Poole Associates, were not
responsible for
appointing Mason Works as contractor to
15:55 the project -- do
you agree or disagree?
A. Disagree.
Q. I'm also putting it
to you that, apart from that
quotation dated 8
September 2006, you never asked Poole
Associates to look
at the quotations submitted by Mason
Works -- do you
agree or disagree?
A. It was not my job.
Q. Do you agree or
disagree?
A. I agree.
Q. And I am also
putting to you that you had asked Fred
Wong and Shaharin --
or rather, let's take it one step
at a time -- I'm
putting it to you that you asked Fred
Wong to review the
prices and the quotation submitted by
works?
A. Absolutely
disagree. We never asked Fred Wong to look
at any prices --
COURT: That's all.
Next.
MR TAN: I'm also
putting it to you that at no time did the
first defendant
Poole Associates or 3rd defendant
Ed Poole
fraudulently represent to you that Mason
Works's quotations
were market value?
A. I've just explained
a very categoric example when they
did try --
Q. Just agree or
disagree.
A. I disagree.
15:56 Q. I am putting it to
you that, in any event, you never
relied on Poole
Associates to evaluate Mason Works'
quotation -- agree
or disagree?
A. Disagree.
MR TAN: All right. I
have no further questions, your
Honour.
COURT: I think we
should let our typists have a break at
this juncture.
(3.57 pm)
(Short break)
(4.13 pm)
Cross-examination by MR SREENIVASAN
MR SREENIVASAN: Now, Mr
Graham, in the course of
cross-examination,
you have described yourself, among
other things, as an
ignoramus as far as construction is
concerned; am I
right?
A. I recall that
comment.
Q. The other comment
you made was, when it came to M&E
works, you know less
than anybody else in this
courtroom; am I
right?
A. I know nothing about
M&E works.
Q. No, forget about
what you know. Your comment was you
know less than
anybody else in the courtroom; am I
right?
A. Well, I have no real
assessment of what everybody else
16:14 in the courtroom
knows, so it's a facetious comments.
I apologise for
being facetious, your Honour --
Q. You have to speak
up. You don't have to go near the
mic, just speak up
from where you are.
You have made
the proposition that a person who is
an ID or designer,
it's the normal practice that such
a person is also the
project manager; am I right?
A. I said in my
experience.
Q. And this is the
experience that you have classified as
being an ignoramus
in construction; am I right?
A. I have an experience
directly in seven and indirectly in
12 projects. Based
on that experience, the comment I'm
making is correct.
Q. And you have
classified that experience as being
an ignoramus in
construction?
A. Can I suggest that
that was a comment made just to
underline a point.
It was not -- (simultaneous speakers
- unclear) --
Q. To underline the
point that you are an ignoramus in
construction?
A. I do not have
experience personally directly in
construction
activities. I have, however, had
experience of
dealing with interior designers and
project managers,
which is not actually constructing,
it's dealing with
designers and project managers.
16:15 Q. You did the
Quayfront seafood; am I right?
A. The restaurant was
called Quayside Seafood.
Q. And when my learned
friend Mr Tan asked you questions,
you described it as
al fresco dining; am I right?
A. That's correct.
Q. No structural works;
am I right?
A. You are wrong.
There was a substantial kitchen
constructed.
Q. And that kitchen
construction was done by Sommerville?
A. No, there was a
building constructed. The kitchen
equipment and design
was done by Sommerville.
Q. Okay. Besides being
an ignoramus in construction and
your previous
experience, you are relying on the actual
wording of the
contract with Poole Associates to say
that Poole
Associates are project managers; am I right?
A. It's the wording
which spells out in detail exactly what
he's responsible
for, and I am relying on that --
(simultaneous
speakers - unclear) --
Q. And you would agree
that the best person to interpret
that wording would
be his Honour; am I right?
A. His Honour is the
best person to interpret everything in
this room as far as
I'm concerned.
Q. You assumed -- and
I'm using your own words again --
that the normal --
prior to the signing of the agreement
on 6 July, that the
normal words and conditions would
16:17 apply; am I right?
A. Correct.
Q. And this is based on
your belief that this is the usual
practice in the
industry; am I right?
A. It was based on the
fact that Poole Associates were the
project manager and
designer for the previous
restaurants that
Clark was involved in. He basically
recommended them as
designer and project managers, not
just as designers.
Mr Poole was recommended as
a designer and a
project manager.
Q. Okay. And I'm just
trying to -- (unclear --
simultaneous
speakers) -- Mr Graham, when I said this is
a usual practice in
industry, I was actually quoting
words that you had
said earlier today -- do you agree?
A. I was very
specific. I said standalone independent
restaurants of half
a million to a million in size, it
doesn't really
justify having a separate project
manager; there's no
need for it, if you have a designer.
Q. You have been sued
by your previous contractors in two
instances; am I
right? And I'll just refresh your
memory -- or rather
not you, Quayside Dining -- let me
get the specifics.
The first is by
Tong Hai Yang Construction Pte Ltd;
am I right?
A. If you could please
elaborate so I can --
16:19 Q. Quayside Dining was
sued by Tong Hai Yang Construction
Pte Ltd?
A. Can you refresh me
more?
Q. No. This all I
have. Have you been sued that often?
A. No --
Q. How many times have
Quayside been sued?
A. I only recall one,
to be honest.
Q. Okay. And was it
Tong Hai Yang Construction?
A. I think so, yes.
Q. And Quayside Dining
went in with a counterclaim; am
I right?
A. If I recall this
correctly, and do forgive, my memory is
a bit lapsed and I'm
beginning to get past the -- the
case in point was an
argument over some -- what do you
call those tiles --
you know, we've got all the very
small tiles, mosaic
tiles, the entire flat surfaces of
Quayside Dining is
covered in multi-coloured mosaic
tiles.
Q. We have to get to my
question. You were sued by Tong
Hai?
A. Yes.
Q. And Quayside Dining
counterclaimed; am I right?
A. Yes.
Q. And affidavits were
exchanged; am I right?
A. It's four or five
years ago, I'm trying to remember. We
16:20 actually did appear
in court, but the case was settled
before it came to
trial.
Q. Then you have
another case where your company was sued
for --
MR VIJAY: Your Honour,
could I intercept at this stage and
ask what's the
relevance -- (simultaneous speakers -
unclear) --
MR SREENIVASAN: You'll
find out in two questions' time,
faster than your
interruption.
Your company was
sued by New Art Interior Pte Ltd?
A. I remember that
name.
Q. Which restaurant was
that for?
A. I can't remember, to
be honest.
Q. Was Mr Crispin your
expert in either of those two cases?
A. I have used Crispin
once. It was to do with the mosaic
tiles.
Q. So you are very
familiar, therefore, with Mr Crispin's
expertise; am I
right?
A. In my entire life, I
have been in court --
Q. Are you familiar
with Mr Crispin's expertise?
A. I used Mr Crispin's
expertise once. He was the only
expert I knew.
Q. Let's move on. You
are an accountant by training; am
I right?
A. Yes.
16:21 Q. And you heard
Crispin's evidence that, as far as the
first quotation of 8
or 10 September was concerned, he
had no deductions to
make; am I right?
A. Crispin evaluated it
and felt that the gross amount of
the overall figure
was reasonable.
Q. So I'm right?
A. Correct.
Q. That's a lot easier
in the evenings.
A. My brain is not
quite in gear. I do apologise, your
Honour. I'm
struggling now.
Q. Now, the other works
that are in dispute relate to
structural works,
mainly to structural works and
mechanical and
electrical works; am I right?
A. The most significant
was the brewhouse, which was
$270,000, and that
is entirely really structural work,
as I'm sure you
know.
Q. So I'm right?
A. You're always right.
Q. Thank you. So if it
relates mainly to structural work,
the quotation were
given in terms of structural work
from 8 November
onwards; am I right? The first one is
8 November and then
there were a couple after that?
A. No, no. The first
quotation was 8 September --
Q. No, for structural
works. That's why you have to listen
carefully. Mr
Graham.
16:22 A. There were other --
how can I put it -- there were other
variations between 8
September and 8 November. I would
have to go and check
whether there was any structural
work there or not,
but certainly 8 November was a huge
structural project.
Q. Now the best persons
to have asked advice on as to the
costing of
structural works would be the structural
consultant; am I
right?
A. Mr Crispin was
chosen by Mason Works -- (simultaneous
speakers - unclear)
--
Q. No, no, hang on.
Listen to my question.
A. I am not able to
assess who is the best person to --
(simultaneous
speakers - unclear) --
Q. -- (simultaneous
speakers - unclear) -- don't know --
A. -- and we agreed on
Mr Crispin --
Q. Mr Graham, answer
the question. This is not a debate.
This is a
cross-examination. Do you agree that the best
person to ask for an
assessment of the cost of
structural works
would be the structural consultants --
"yes", "no", "I
don't know"?
A. I'm not qualified to
comment on who is the best
consultant to choose
for anything to do with
construction. I
chose the only man I knew and Mason
Works agreed with
that and they did know him.
Q. Do you agree that
the best person to assess the cost of
16:24 mechanical and
electrical works would be the M&E
consultants?
A. We can't have
consultants for everything. We had one
agreed consultant,
it was Mr Crispin, I'm perfectly
prepared to agree
with everything you say. The point is
we only have one
consultant and it was Mr Crispin and it
was jointly chosen
and we both had experience of him,
and Mason Works,
frankly, have far more experience than
I have in choosing
consultants, and if Mr Crispin was
wrong, I would
suggest they should have fixed it, not
me. I only know
one.
Q. Can I ask you
whether the M&E consultants had been
appointed prior to 8
November?
A. You're talking about
for The Pump Room project itself?
Q. Yes.
A. You're talking about
the Project Portfolio people?
Q. That's right.
A. They had the job.
Q. Prior to 8 November;
am I right?
A. Of course, I
mentioned to you that these things --
(simultaneous
speakers - unclear) --
Q. Similarly, the
structural consultants had also been
appointed prior to 8
November; am I right -- RSP
Architects?
A. RSP had been
appointed before 8 November.
16:25 Q. So, if you wanted
any advice on the M&E or structural
costing, you could
have gone to your M&E and structural
consultants; am I
right?
A. My issue was not M&E
specifically or structural
specifically or this
specifically -- (simultaneous
speakers - unclear)
--
Q. Listen to my -- Mr
Graham, I'm going to interrupt you --
A. Yes, but my --
Q. Answer my question
first. You could have --
(simultaneous
speakers - unclear) --
MR VIJAY: I think in
all fairness, in this instance he is
answering the
question.
MR SREENIVASAN: No,
he's not yet, he can answer "yes" or
"no" and then go --
MR VIJAY: No, not all
questions can be answered "yes" or
"no" --
MR SREENIVASAN: With an
honest witnesses they can.
MR VIJAY: All witnesses
in this court are honest?
A. I find that
offensive, your Honour.
MR SREENIVASAN: So I
will repeat my question. You could
have gone to the M&E
and structural consultants to get
their views on the
costing; am I right?
A. Yes.
Q. Now, when you had
your Tong Hai case, the mosaic case
and you had Mr
Crispin as your expert, you were quite
16:26 pleased with his
performance?
A. Well, it wasn't
difficult because the mosaic fell like
snow, and he simply
was just an expert to give
credibility.
Q. As a matter of
interest, when you wrote Crispin's name
on the 8 November
quotation, did you tell Mason Works,
"By the way, I have
used this guy before as my expert".
A. Both Mason Works and
I had used him before and we were
both aware of that.
COURT: So the question
is did you tell?
A. Yes.
MR SREENIVASAN: Now, do
you agree that it was one of the
conditions of Poole
Associates' contract that the
contract is only
binding when first paid, when payment
of the first 10 per
cent is made?
A. I would have to
check that.
Q. Let's check it. Are
you more comfortable with your own
affidavit? Why
don't we go to your affidavit? We'll go
to page 114 --
sorry, 113 -- turn to page 115 of your
affidavit.
A. I'm quite prepared
to accept whatever you say as
correct. My view is
that Poole had been project manager
and designer since
early May.
Q. Hang on, hang on.
You have got to listen to my
question. You can't
go on repeating your answers.
16:28 A. No, I'm accepting
what you say.
Q. So just accept that
Poole Associates would be appointed
upon first payment
or first payment would have to be
made upon
appointment; am I right?
A. That's what it says
--
Q. No, no. Look at
115.
A. Then I have to find
it. Where is this again?
Q. Page 115 of your own
affidavit.
A. Let me find that.
Q. "Upon appointment
deposit 10 per cent", can you see
that?
A. Yes, I see that.
Q. So the first payment
will correspond with appointment,
do you agree,
according to the contract?
A. That's what the
contract says.
Q. And when was first
payment made?
A. I would have to
check. I do not recall offhand.
Q. In July; am I right?
A. I would have to
check. I don't know offhand.
Q. Why don't we turn to
page 113, and we see in the first
page, "Budget to be
determined"; am I right?
A. Correct.
Q. If you look under
"Consultants", the architect is named
as RSP Architects;
am I right?
A. Correct.
16:30 Q. If you look under
"M&E", "to be determined" and under
"structural
engineers" it says "RSP Architects"; am I
right?
A. Correct.
Q. Then there is a
graphic designer who does the menus and
the cards, et
cetera; am I right?
A. Correct.
Q. And then you've got
a designer consultant, Poole
Associates, agreed?
A. That's what it says.
Q. And their scope says
"full scope interior architecture",
do you see that?
A. I see it.
Q. Is M&E covered under
interior architecture?
A. The clauses in this
project, in this contract about
project management
are quite clear; M&E is covered under
project management.
Q. You see this is
where you are not being responsive to my
question. My
question is very simple. Is M&E covered
under full scope
interior architecture?
A. I would not be able
to comment on that. I'm not sure
what "full scope
interior architecture" means --
(unclear --
simultaneous speakers) --
Q. You're not sure.
Are structural works covered under
full scope interior
architecture?
16:31 A. I cannot comment on
that.
Q. Is the actual
brewery construction covered under full
scope interior
architecture?
A. The word
"architecture" to me means anything to do with
construction and
building to me -- is my interpretation
of that correct? I
do not know. I cannot define this
for you. An
architect for me knows everything about
buildings,
everything about buildings and
construction -- is
that correct or not? I leave it to
you to --
Q. But your
understanding and your assertion in this case
is based on what you
have just said; the architect is
responsible for
everything involved in the building --
am I right?
A. My understanding was
that Mr Edward Poole was clearly
responsible for the
design and for the project
management of this
fairly small project.
Q. Of the entire
construction, am I right?
A. Of the supervision
of those people involved in the
project.
Q. Including the
structural consultants?
A. Excluding the
kitchen specialists and excluding the
brewery equipment
specialists, which were not to do with
construction, but
everywhere else, he is there to
co-ordinate these
people. He has to co-ordinate.
16:32 I am not
suggesting for a second that he is
a specialist in
everything, but, as a project manager,
my understanding is
he has to co-ordinate these people.
Q. Let's go back to
your understanding. Because do you
agree that the scope
of work of Poole Associates is full
scope interior
architecture?
A. That's what it says
there, but it's not specific --
(unclear --
simultaneous speakers) --
Q. So do you agree that
we need to understand this term
before we can
determine his scope of work?
A. I would suggest that
it is spelt out very carefully in
many, many clauses
in the contract. To chose one clause
and try to interpret
what that might mean, you are
missing the
specifics, which are spelt out in great
detail later, and I
would suggest we go to the
specifics, rather
than the generalities.
Q. Mr Graham, now what
is or is not included in the full
scope must be seen
in the light of the practices of the
industry; am I
right?
A. You would have to
define your "industry", if you are
talking about --
Q. Full scope
architectural --
A. For small --
Q. -- for restaurants?
A. For small
independent restaurants with a budget of
16:33 500,000 to 1/1.5
million.
Q. We don't have a
budget here, so we'll just take the
small independent
restaurants.
A. As I say, in my
experience and apparently in the
experience of Mr
Clark Martin, with the specific
Mr Poole whom we are
talking about, it has always been
project management
included with design, and that is
what I based my
understanding on.
Q. But now the question
is --
A. And anything other
than that, I don't know.
Q. The question is
project management of what? According
to you, it includes
project management of M&E works and
project management
of structural works; am I right? Is
that what you are
saying?
A. I am not saying
anything on that basis. I am saying
that what is --
Q. Mr Graham, stop and
listen to my question. I don't want
to be rude to you, I
have been raised not to be rude to
my elders, but you
have to respect the system in the
court, this is not a
pub discussion.
Is it your
understanding that Mr Ed Poole's scope of
work included
supervision or co-ordination or structural
work?
A. It included the
supervision --
COURT: It's either
"yes" or "no" for that.
16:35 A. Yes, it did.
MR SREENIVASAN: Same --
is it your position that it
included mechanical
and electrical work?
A. Yes, that would be
my position.
Q. I'm suggesting or
putting it to you that the scope of
Mr Poole's work was
limited to interior architecture and
the scope of his
project management work was also
limited to interior
architecture -- agree or disagree?
A. May I read the
specific phrase?
Q. Can you agree or
disagree first?
A. I disagree.
Q. Fine --
A. Because the specific
the scope of services --
Q. Hang on, hold on.
We have agreed that his Honour will
do the contractual
interpretation, not you, not me, so
let's move on.
Mr Graham?
A. I'm listening.
Q. Do you now agree
that you have earlier said that the
8 September
quotation -- and I use your exact words --
is deceitful
nonsense?
A. No.
Q. You did say that, I
wrote it down.
A. I said that the
movement between the 8 September
quotation and the 12
September quotation, because there
16:36 are two separate
quotations, the comment that Mr Poole
and Mr Lee had got
together and somehow created
an $118,400 saving
was deceitful nonsense.
Q. Do you agree that
your expert, Mr Crispin, has accepted
the valuation for
the works done under the 8 and
12 September
quotations?
A. What we are talking
about here --
Q. Do you agree that
your expert has accepted the valuation
of that work?
COURT: "Yes" or "no"?
A. Yes.
MR SREENIVASAN: Do you
agree that your expert has not
deducted any sums
from that figure?
A. Correct.
Q. Do you agree that,
even on your case, that all your
expert is supposed
to do is to say whether it's fair or
not fair, he has not
described it as unfair.
A. What was taken out
--
COURT: "Yes" or "no",
please.
A. Yes, the expert did
not take anything out of that.
MR SREENIVASAN: Let's
look at the issue of micro-piling.
Is it your case that
Mr Poole should have anticipated
the need for
micro-piling?
A. Mr Poole was aware
of the need for micro-piling from
very early on.
16:38 Q. And this need for
micro-piling was pointed out by RSP
Architects; am I
right?
A. Early in the
process.
Q. Because they were
the structural engineers; am I right?
A. They were the
structural engineers.
Q. And they were
responsible for making sure that the
structure could take
the load; am I right?
A. They designed the
micro-piling I believe, you are
correct.
Q. But they had one
limitation in designing the
micro-piling, and
that is the structure had to support
the vat or the vats;
am I right?
A. That's why
micro-piling was necessary.
Q. And these vats were
purchased in New Zealand; am I
right?
A. That is correct.
Q. And these vats were
going to be full of beer when the
microbrewery was in
operation; am I right?
A. They would have a
load of 30,000 kilograms.
Q. That's right. 30
tonnes; am I right?
A. T-O-N-N-E-S, yes.
Q. Clarke Quay is a
conservation building; am I right?
A. That is correct.
Q. So when somebody
goes and buys the vats they should
think whether the
vats can fit into the building; am I
16:39 right?
A. There are no vats
that can fit into the building. The
surface load that
floor can take is less than 5
kilonewtons. It was
fairly evident from early on we
would have a
problem, that is a fact.
On the other
hand, Mr Poole had the job of surveying
and I would suggest
that, as an architect, this is the
first question that
should have popped into his mind.
He knew from the
beginning we were a brewery.
Q. Do you agree that
the correct people who should be
thinking about what
the floor can support would be the
structural engineer?
A. They were actually
hired for that purpose, yes.
Q. That's right. So
what happens is Mr Poole draws in
where the vats
should be and the structural engineer
comes out with the
structural plan to support that
layout; am I right?
A. Mr Poole was not
responsible for designing, as
I understand it, the
structural plan to support it.
Mr Poole was
responsible for making sure that the
project advanced and
that the structure that was being
constructed in terms
of dimensions and in terms of floor
strength was being
properly handled by the appropriate
expert.
Q. But Mr Poole has to
rely on RSP Architects on what is
16:40 the necessary
structural work; am I right?
A. That is his job as
the project manager, to appropriately
work with the
experts.
Q. Unless, of course,
his project management work was
limited to full
interior design -- interior
architecture; am I
right?
A. We're back to this
question of defining "full interior
architecture".
Q. That's right.
Okay. So let's move on, then.
RSP Architects,
until they gave you the structural
plan, you couldn't
get the structural work done; am I
right?
A. I think that is
correct, yes.
Q. And RSP Architects
only finished their structural plan
in October; am I
right?
A. I'm prepared to
accept that, but I have to question why,
because if Mr Poole
had been on the case, perhaps we
could have done it a
little bit faster.
Q. So Mr Poole is
responsible for RSP Architects not doing
their work on time?
A. I'm not saying they
didn't do their work on time --
Q. So what are you
saying?
A. I'm saying that if
there were delays, I would like some
evidence that Mr
Poole was actually working on
shortening those
delays. I have never seen any evidence
16:42 to that. Mr Poole
--
Q. Do you know what the
cost of the delay was?
A. The cause of the
delay?
Q. In coming up with
the structural drawings.
A. I would have to go
back and get some detailed
information on that.
Q. So you don't know?
A. I'm trying to
remember. At the moment, my brain is --
Q. Think. Because my
next question is, whose fault was it?
A. Well, I have see
demonstrable discussions between
Mr Poole and RSP,
arguing about a number of things to do
with it.
Q. Yes. So what --
whose fault was the delay?
A. I would have to go
back and check.
Q. You don't know?
A. I cannot remember at
this moment in time.
Q. Do you know that
according to Mr Chris Shelley's plan,
the micro-piling was
supposed to be done in July 2006?
A. That would be a very
desirable thing to happen.
Q. No, no, according to
his plan. Would you look at his
affidavit --
A. My understanding is
he may or may not have liked that,
but it takes two
months to get approval. The main
delay, basically, is
it's going to get through URA
approval, it's a
two-month process.
16:43 Q. That's right. So if
the drawings were only completed in
October 2006, then
you're going to have a long delay in
getting it approved?
A. I think I should
clarify for you that I am not claiming
anything from Mr
Poole because of the delay in the
brewery. I am not
claiming anything at all from
Mr Poole about the
delay in the brewery. So talking
about the delay in
the brewery is actually quite
irrelevant.
Q. Okay. Good.
A. My criticism of Mr
Poole is that he failed to solve a
very, very simple
problem, which was --
Q. Okay. Hang on. Now
we are making some progress.
So the delay in
the restaurant is only two months;
am I right?
A. One week. To get
approval to build the restaurant --
Q. No, the delay in
opening the restaurant, according to
you, was instead of
October, it was opened in December;
am I right?
A. Two months, one
week.
Q. Two months and one
week? But that's not what you say in
your affidavit, Mr
Graham. In your affidavit, you are
asking for a period
of five months.
A. Shall I explain that
to you?
Q. No, no, what are you
asking now? Two months and one
16:44 week, or five
months?
A. I -- I say I have to
explain that to you.
Q. No, tell me which
one first.
A. I'm asking for the
impact over the five-month period.
Because when you
delay by two months, you also delay in
the take-off in
subsequent months.
Q. Okay.
A. I thought it was
calculated quite clearly. If you would
like me to take you
through it, because you are an
accounting expert --
Q. I will do that. I
will do that. You heard in court I
did get an A in
accounting --
A. Yes.
Q. -- but that doesn't
make me an expert.
Now, so let's
get this straight. You have got a
claim against Ed
Poole and Poole Associates for two
months, one week,
delay in opening the restaurant?
A. Plus the impact on
the subsequent months.
Q. Plus the impact --
well, that's the effect?
A. That's the effect.
Exactly.
Q. The breach is this.
You are also claiming for the
additional costs of
construction that you had to pay
Mr Ong's clients; am
right?
A. This is the 550
identified by our joint expert.
Q. That's right. So
these are the two claims that you have
16:45 against Ed Poole?
A. No, there's a third
claim. Mr Poole was -- signed a
contract to do a
particular job for us. Mr Poole --
Q. So you want back
your $58,000?
A. Please.
Q. Okay. Thank you.
So now let's
take your $515,000 --
A. 550.
Q. 550; okay.
You are saying
that you overpaid Mr Ong's client,
because Mr Ong's
client and Pump Room have agreed on a
joint expert to
assess the value of works. Am I right?
A. That is what I am
saying, yes.
Q. So if the expert
says that the full amount is the
correct value, you
have got no arguments. Am I right?
A. I have no arguments
against Mr Poole. One can only
claim once.
Q. Yes. And you have
no argument against Mr Ong, as well,
Mr Ong's clients,
Mason Works, if the expert says the
full amount is due;
am I right?
A. I'm trying to work
out what the point of the question
is.
Q. No, don't work out
the points. Just tell the truth.
A. If 550 is paid,
would I have a claim against Mason
Works?
16:46 Q. If Mr Crispin says
what they have charged you is fair,
do you have a
problem with that?
A. None at all.
Q. Okay. So your basis
of saying that Mr Ong's client has
overcharged The Pump
Room is what Mr Crispin says is
fair or unfair; am I
right?
A. I'm relying on --
the report of the joint expert
identifies 550,000
as the payable figure.
Q. Shakespeare said
lawyers equivocate. So -- you are an
accountant; let's
behave like accountants.
Your case is,
because both parties have agreed to be
bound by Crispin's
assessment, and because Crispin has
cut off $550,000,
then they are only entitled to what
Crispin says they
are entitled to; am I right?
A. Crispin has said
that the overcharge was $550,000.
Q. That's right.
A. I am perfectly happy
to discuss that.
Q. No, no; hang on.
I'm talking about your case. Your
case is that because
Crispin has said they have
overcharged by
550,000, they are not entitled to that
sum. Am I right?
A. I think we have
clearly established --
Q. Is that your case?
A. My case is that
Crispin's figure of 550 has been
established. I am
perfectly happy to review any input
16:48 from Mason Works or
anyone else --
COURT: His question --
MR SREENIVASAN: I will
take it slowly, your Honour; this is
an important point.
You have said
that on 8th November, Mason Works and
Pump Room agreed
that the contract sum will be adjusted
to such figure as
Crispin says is fair. Is that your
case?
A. That is my case.
Q. Good. Let's take it
one baby step from there: If
Crispin says Mason
Works' quotation, the whole thing,
and taking your
case, all the other variations is fair,
you would pay in
full; am I right?
A. If it was fair, I
would pay --
Q. In full?
A. If Crispin said it
was fair --
Q. Yeah.
A. Absolutely. I was
-- honestly, I wanted to pay.
Q. Hang on, hang on --
A. I wanted to get this
behind me.
Q. -- let's take it one
step back.
And you are now
claiming that you are overcharged
because Crispin says
it's worth $550,000 less; am I
right?
A. I am claiming that
Crispin has identified $550,000. Is
16:49 that the correct
number? I don't know.
Q. Hang on; no, no,
no. You are claiming 550 --
A. I would be prepared
to listen to any argument against
it --
Q. You are prepared to
listen to anything now because we
have seen Crispin's
evidence.
Let's get back
to your case. It is your case that
Pump Room is
entitled to $550,000 discount, cut off,
Mason Works' full
fees, because Crispin has said so. Am
I right?
A. I am not so
unreasonable.
Q. Is that your case?
Because if you are not
unreasonable --
A. I am happy to sit
down and identify --
Q. -- and that's your
case, we can go somewhere else.
A. I am happy to sit
down and identify any reasonable
argument against it.
Q. Is it your case that
the figure due to Mason Works has
to be reduced by
$550,000 because Crispin has said so?
Yes or no?
A. The case is -- yes;
am I flexible --
Q. Is it your case?
Yes or no?
A. The case is -- yes;
am I flexible, because I can
identify --
COURT: Nobody asked you
whether you are flexible.
16:50 A. No, there's one --
COURT: All right, the
answer is -- he is not asking you
about --
A. The answer is, that
is the basis of the case.
COURT: That's it.
MR SREENIVASAN: Good.
And that basis, that you are
entitled to $550,000
off, arises from, to use your
words, the
appointment of a common expert by Mason Works
and Pump Room. Am I
right?
A. Yes.
Q. That agreement, to
be bound by the findings of a common
expert, was reached
between Pump Room and Mason Works,
without consulting
Poole Associates or Ed Poole; am I
right?
A. That's correct.
Q. Poole Associates and
Ed Poole are not bound to follow or
not bound or parties
to that agreement; am I right?
A. That is not the
basis for --
COURT: Is it right or
wrong?
A. It is correct they
are not bound by the agreement.
COURT: Fine. Let's
move on.
MR SREENIVASAN: Now,
tell me, when were the specifications
for the brewery vats
given to Ed Poole?
A. I believe it was in
May.
Q. When were they given
to RSP Architects?
16:51 A. I believe it was in
May.
Q. Now, as far as the
micro-piling was concerned, RSP
Architects had to
tell the contractors exactly where to
do the micro-piling;
am I right?
A. You're asking
technical questions I can't answer. I
would assume so.
Q. Do you -- if RSP --
now I'm asking you a hypothetical
question: If RSP
Architects were late in telling the
contractor where to
do the micro-piling, that would
delay the start of
the piling works. Am I right?
A. That is correct.
Q. Now, the -- you told
us a few minutes ago that you're
not holding Poole
Associates and Ed Poole responsible
for the delay in the
brewery; you still hold by that?
A. I don't think I've
ever asked for anything for the delay
in the brewery. You
remember --
COURT: Is that still
your position?
MR SREENIVASAN: Is that
still your position?
A. That's -- that's my
position.
Q. Okay.
COURT: Next question.
MR SREENIVASAN:
However, you are saying Ed Poole ought to
have told you, "Hey,
split the two; go and get TOP for
the restaurant
first." Am I right?
A. That would have been
very welcome, yes.
16:52 Q. But you had a
condition with Clarke Quay where you must
have a microbrewery
on site; am I right?
A. It was a condition
of the operation. I had to have a
brewery.
Q. That's right. And
it must be a real microbrewery; it
can't be one of
those pretend ones. Am I right?
A. It could be a
pretend one.
Q. It actually had to
make beer; am I right?
A. It had to make beer
--
Q. Yes.
A. -- but it could be a
pretend one.
Q. How does a pretend
microbrewery make beer -- pretend
beer?
A. A small one.
Q. Okay. Not the
alcohol-free one?
A. Not the 50-litre one
that you are working on at home.
Q. Okay. So Clarke
Quay put, as a condition of your
operations, that you
needed a microbrewery; but the
microbrewery gave
problems in terms of structure,
because of the
piling, micro-piling, et cetera? Am I
right?
A. Correct.
Q. And in the end,
Clarke Quay came out with the idea: Why
don't you do the two
separate? Am I right?
A. Yes. The lady who
runs Clarke Quay is the genius who
16:54 found the solution.
Q. RSP didn't tell you
this; am I right?
A. RSP were not asked
that question. RSP were only doing
the structural work
on the -- they were not involved.
Q. They were also the
project architect; am I right?
Let's look at Ed
Poole's --
A. The only structural
work was the --
Q. No, no --
A. -- the brewery.
Q. -- let's look at Ed
Poole's contract.
A. There was no other
structural work other than the
mezzanine and the
brewery.
Q. Were they also the
project architects?
A. We hired RSP to work
on the brewery --
Q. Yes or no? Were
they the project architects?
A. My understanding is
that they were the architects
working on the
brewery. I don't think we had any other
architects.
So yes, they
were the project architects --
Q. Okay.
A. -- but very
specifically for the --
Q. So they were the
architects. Were they the ones who did
the submissions to
the relevant authorities?
A. To the URA --
Q. Yes?
16:54 A. -- for -- yes.
Q. And -- let's see.
They did the submission to URA. They
were the structural
engineers, and they knew about the
problems that the
micro-piling -- or the issues involved
in the
micro-piling. Am I right?
A. When you say "the
issues", you mean the structural
problems?
Q. Yes.
A. Of course, yes.
Q. But they never told
you, "Split the applications"; am I
right?
A. They were never
involved in the restaurant whatsoever.
They were unaware of
it. No one ever --
Q. Who submitted --
A. -- I mean, Mr Poole
--
Q. -- the restaurant
plans to URA?
A. Sorry?
Q. Who submitted the
restaurant plans to URA?
A. I would assume it
would be RSP.
Q. Okay.
A. But no one ever
asked them to come forward with the
solution. They were
asked to design structures.
Q. No, but they were
also asked to submit drawings to URA,
including drawings
of the restaurant. Am I right?
We can take
those drawings; we can find their chops
16:55 on it all over.
A. The submission of
the drawings to URA, any submissions
to URA, would have
to have gone through RSP, because
Mr Poole is not able
to do that.
Q. In fact, one of the
problems was the common area between
Highlander and Pump
Room, because that common area was
needed to get access
to the sprinkler control room; am I
right?
A. Correct.
Q. But The Pump Room
wanted to -- I'm sorry, The
Highlander -- wanted
to use that common area, because
it's 15 bucks a
square foot, $15 a square foot; am I
right?
A. The common area is
actually free.
Q. Was it part of your
requirements that that common area
be used for the two
-- for the two establishments?
A. When you say
"requirements" --
Q. Was that what you
wanted, you and Clark?
A. Clark certainly
would have liked to incorporate that
common area into his
restaurant.
Q. Okay. And Clark
told Ed Poole, "Please incorporate it
into my restaurant";
am I right?
A. There was discussion
back and forth as to whether it was
possible.
Q. Hang on. Hang on.
So Ed Poole tried to convince RSP
16:57 that he could do it;
am I right?
A. Yes, he did.
Q. And RSP said, "No
way, because you can't incorporate
that in, because it
affects -- it impedes access to the
sprinkler room"; am
I right?
A. Correct.
Q. So what Ed Poole was
trying to do with RSP was to get
Clark what he
wanted; am I right?
A. I would agree with
that.
Q. But you and your
counsel have put that in a bundle of
documents, saying
that this shows that Ed Poole was
fighting with RSP.
A. Ed Poole was unaware
of the fact that this was not a
possibility, and we
wasted a lot of time back and forth.
He refused to accept
the advice of a much more
qualified,
apparently, architect. We should not have
wasted time. He
should have known.
Q. Mr Graham, no skin
off Ed Poole's nose, isn't it?
A. I would agree with
that. He was trying to look after
our interests.
Q. He was trying to do
what Clark wanted?
A. Exactly, but it was
a waste of time.
Q. What your partner
wanted?
A. Correct.
Q. And now you blame
him for that?
16:58 A. The delay was caused
by that argument, and the ill
feeling between RSP
and Mr Poole simply escalated out
to --
Q. Let's go back to
your wording, and again I have copied
down actual words.
You said that you have to put a
compact microbrewery
-- whatever happened, it had to be
fitted into that
space. Am I right?
A. We had -- we had
flexibility in the space. Not a lot.
Q. Whatever it is, it
had to be fitted in there; am I
right?
A. You take your
microbrewery and you design the space
around it.
Q. You design the space
around it, but you also have to
have your restaurant
there; am I right?
A. The restaurant has
to be there, yes.
Q. So the size of the
microbrewery became a key factor in
the design; am I
right?
A. Not of the
restaurant.
Q. No, of the brewery
portion; am I right?
A. The size of the
microbrewery affects the brewery
portion; correct.
Q. Now, the contract
itself, except for your statement,
"special
requirements as previously discussed", has got
no time lines; am I
right?
A. That is correct.
16:59 Q. It has got no
commitment for the job to be finished on
time; am I right?
A. Mr Poole is --
Q. Does it have a
commitment for the job to be finished on
time? Yes or no?
A. No.
Q. Okay. Now, the
piling turned out to be a nightmare in
this case, didn't
it?
A. The piling was a
major delaying factor.
Q. And the piling was
going on in November; am I right?
A. Correct.
Q. When the piling is
going on, the brewery is next door to
the restaurant; am I
right?
A. Correct.
Q. Now, you can't run a
restaurant with micro-piling, and
mud oozing out next
door; am I right?
A. Incorrect. The
restaurant --
Q. No, "incorrect"; I
accept your word for it.
A. Yeah.
Q. Does micro-piling
make noise?
A. The restaurant is
closed between 3 in the morning
and 12, so given
that the entire Clarke Quay was pretty
empty at the time,
there was no problem.
Q. If you did
micro-piling at night?
A. Clarke Quay hadn't
opened. The entire place was a
17:00 construction site.
All of it. There was no problem
micro-piling. Now,
the restaurant opened --
Q. Hang on, hang on. I
want to go back to that. You say
the entire place was
...?
A. All of Clarke Quay
had been redeveloped.
Q. Yeah?
A. Now, micro-piling,
in November, we were still a
construction site.
There was nothing anywhere in that
entire building.
And the flexibility for micro-piling
was pretty well 24
hours a day.
Q. Okay.
A. Even after the
restaurant opened, you could still
micro-pile from
about 4 in the morning till midday.
There was not a
great problem micro-piling.
Q. So you couldn't
micro-pile while the restaurant was in
operation; do you
agree that much?
A. It would be very
difficult to micro-pile when the
restaurant was in
operation.
Q. It would be
impossible, Mr Graham; nobody pays good
money to have a beer
or fish and chips with piling going
on next door. Am I
right?
A. I would not argue
with that.
Q. Yes. So now, if the
micro-piling went on until
November, assuming
that it could not be done at night,
it means it would
have -- you couldn't have opened the
17:01 restaurant; am I
right?
A. We could not have
micro-piled while the restaurant was
opened. It would
have been difficult.
Q. And you would need
to micro-pile to get your brewery up
and going.
A. There was no -- the
brewery was not essential to open
the restaurant. You
could buy beer from other people.
Q. But the micro-piling
--
A. So if the
micro-piling -- if it took longer, it took
longer.
Q. Yes, but while
micro-piling was going on, you can't open
the restaurant?
A. I can micro-pile
when the restaurant was closed, which
is between 3 and 12;
nine hours a day.
Q. Now, you have taken
-- you said the impact of the loss
of income, you have
taken February/March, of 2007 as
part the income; am
I right?
A. Yes.
Q. Now, February/March
2007, the brewery was open; am I
right?
A. The brewery opened
at the end of February.
Q. Yes. So if you look
at the income after the brewery was
opened, it doesn't
really tell us what the -- it is --
to take an economic
term, ceteris paribus, all things --
A. I don't know what
that means.
17:02 Q. Okay. All things
being equal, there would be more
income when the
brewery is in fact open; am I right?
A. We had beer. There
was no shortage of beer. We also
bought beer from a
microbrewery, so it was microbrewery
beer. We were
perfectly able to --
Q. So you are saying
the opening of the brewery had no
impact on revenue?
A. I would be incorrect
to say that.
Q. You would be wrong
to say that?
A. I would be incorrect
to say that, because --
Q. You would be wrong.
"I would be incorrect" means "I
would be wrong to
say that"?
A. Okay. The fact is
we had all the beer we needed. We
got it from another
microbrewery --
Q. Listen to my
question.
A. -- it wasn't a
problem.
Q. Opening of the
brewery: Did it have an impact on
revenue?
A. It is impossible to
say, because I had all the beer I
needed.
Q. But we do know that
revenue went up after the brewery
opened; am I right?
A. Revenue went up
every month, from December, January,
February, March,
April.
Q. I'm not saying cause
and effect. "Subsequent to" and
17:03 "consequent to" are
two different words. I'm just
saying subsequent to
your brewery opening, revenue went
up. Am I right?
A. Correct.
Q. And you have
repeatedly told us that you don't know what
was the impact of
the brewery not opening, because you
already had your
beer from other sources. Am I right?
A. It is impossible for
me to distinguish between the
impact of having a
brewery in operation and not, because
we had no shortage
of beer.
Q. That's right.
A. The main -- the main
advantage we have, to be honest, as
an operator, is that
we have a stupendous nightclub and
bar.
Q. That's right. Now,
so do you agree that in the food and
beverage and
entertainment and pub business, revenue
starts a bit slow,
people get to know about it, more
people turn up, then
you get a bunch of regulars, and
revenue moves up,
until the next new fad comes in; then
you close down?
A. Our revenue has
increased almost every month since we
opened.
Q. So when the
restaurant opened in December, it was
expected that it
would be a bit of a slow start and that
it would pick up; am
I right?
17:05 A. It always is a slow
start, then pick up. Our advantage
was that we had the
possibility of promoting the brand
of the band, which
gave us a better start than usual.
Q. Okay. And when did
the band start?
A. The band started the
day we opened.
Q. Okay.
A. They were waiting
for us from the 1st of October.
Q. Okay. So if we look
at the impact of the delay of two
months, it would be
two months the entire revenue growth
was set back; that
means instead of starting on
1st October, you
start on 6 December, and then the curve
continues the same;
am I right?
A. Correct.
Q. Now, you described
-- and again I'm using your own
words -- Poole
Associates project management as
catastrophic, which
is why you got the assistance -- and
I'm using your own
words now -- of Fred Wong in August?
A. The problem was Mr
Poole was not there --
Q. Hang on. I haven't
asked a question.
A. My apologies.
Q. Do you still stand
by the word "catastrophic"? Or do
you want to change
that word?
A. Well, the impact was
catastrophic.
Q. Okay. Now, with
this catastrophic impact and the
appointment of Mr
Fred Wong, one would have expected you
17:06 to take the position
that Mr Poole had caused you
significant losses,
catastrophic losses. Am I right?
A. I believe that's
what I'm claiming, yes.
Q. Now, my learned
friend, Mr Tan, had highlighted when you
started doing your
claims. Now, you have also said that
we should
cross-examine Mr Wong as to the limited nature
of his scope. Do
you recall saying that?
A. I did, yes.
Q. And if Mr Wong
admits to being project manager, he would
be sued next, is it,
for catastrophic delay?
A. Mr Wong joined us in
September --
Q. In August, he signed
the contract.
A. End of August. So
he was functional, basically, in
September. And I do
not claim there were catastrophic
delays in September
or October.
Q. Okay.
A. It moved quite
quickly after that. The delay period was
May through end of
August.
Q. Now, you have
claimed against Mr Ed Poole personally; am
I right?
A. Correct.
Q. As an accountant,
you are familiar with the concept of a
limited liability
company; am I right?
A. It is a very
well-established principle.
Q. That's right. And
you know Poole Associates have been
17:08 in business for more
than 16 years; am I right?
A. Absolutely correct.
Q. And they have done
various projects --
A. Many, many projects.
Q. -- under the name
"Poole Associates"?
A. Correct.
Q. And you have
exhibited copies of their other contracts;
for example, China
Jump?
A. Correct.
Q. And Poole Associates
came to you very highly recommended
by Clark; am I
right?
A. Clark is -- was a
very, very big admirer of Mr Poole's
design abilities.
Q. Yes. And we all
know that China Jump, to use the
terminology that
perhaps some of my learned friends may
use, was one of the
happening places in Singapore; am I
right?
A. I actually have
never been to China Jump. I'm too old
for happening
places, to be honest about it.
Q. They have got this
dentist chair where they --
A. I have heard about
it. It terrifies me.
Q. Now, you also know
that Mr Poole's other locations have
been happening
places; am I right?
A. He has had some
successes and some failures.
Q. Brewerkz is a major
success?
17:09 A. Brewerkz is a superb
operator. The design is not
particularly
exciting. What is exciting is their
comfort food and
beer. Terrific.
Q. Now, you have
compared Mr Poole's ID charges with what
you have paid for
your other ventures; am I right?
A. Correct.
Q. Now, Quayside --
Quayfront Seafood; that's a seafood
restaurant?
A. It's a seafood
restaurant, yes.
Q. Peony Jade is a
Chinese restaurant?
A. Correct.
Q. The Pump Room, on
the other hand, is a happening place,
with a band called
"Jive Talking"; am I right?
A. This is correct.
Q. It has got a wall --
30-metre -- 30-feet wall with
mirrors; am I right?
A. Correct.
Q. It's a nightclub
kind of pub; am I right?
A. It's a
nightclub/restaurant combined.
Q. So the type of ID
work and the talent required to create
a happening night
spot, it's a fair bit different from
what you need for a
restaurant; am I right?
A. Which is why I
agreed to $68,000.
Q. That's right.
$68,000 worth of high-end, happening
night club interior
design; am I right?
17:10 A. It's 6,000 -- sorry,
the interior is 5,500 square feet,
which is quite
small.
Q. I'm putting it to
you that Mr Ed Poole was not hired as
a project manager;
that Mr Ed Poole was hired as an
interior designer --
or to use a technical term, full
interior
architecture -- and no more. Do you agree?
A. I disagree.
Q. And in fact, if
there was any problems that arose out of
project management
in structure and M&E works, you
should look to your
M&E structural consultants. Do you
agree?
A. I disagree.
Q. Now, when your two
previous contractors sued you, or
sued the Quayfront
-- Quayside Dining, you came out with
a counterclaim as
well; am I right?
A. The one I remember
is the mosaic tiling --
Q. How much was your
counterclaim?
A. Fifteen, twenty
thousand dollars. Quite small.
Q. Now, you said
Highlander, under $100 per square foot?
A. It's a figure I -- I
calculated.
Q. Yeah. It's
extremely cheap; am I right? Extremely
cheap?
Did Highlander
require structural works?
A. We're talking per
square foot?
Q. Yeah. Did it
require structural works?
17:11 A. Highlander did not
require structural works.
Q. Did it require
micro-piling?
A. It did not.
Q. Now, this particular
Pump Room, the total bill is
about 1.2 million;
am I right?
A. Oh, rubbish. 2.8
million. For only Mason Works --
Q. For construction?
For construction?
A. 2.8 million, total
investment.
Q. No, construction
works, Mr Graham.
A. Oh, this is only
Mason Works. All the other bills, the
micro-piling,
everything --
Q. The micro-piling is
147,000.
A. Yes.
Many, many other
items. The total investment in The
Pump Room was $2.8
million.
Q. How much for
construction?
A. I would have to go
in and add it up. I would guess
about -- 1.5.
Q. 1.5. Okay, let's
take 1.5 for construction. And
Highlander is about
--
A. Including the
brewery there, or not?
Q. Including the
brewery.
A. The brewery -- Mason
Works is about 1.2, 1.3.
Q. Yep.
A. Then you've got --
17:12 Q. Piling is 147,000?
A. Brewery would be
roughly 600K.
Q. That's the brewing
equipment and all that?
A. That's what I'm
talking about.
Q. Now, if we take
construction, how much per square foot
does it come out to?
A. If you're taking
construction, you must take the brewery
out. It is not a
construction.
Q. So how much per
square foot does it come out to?
A. The figure that was
calculated, by whoever, was $183.
Q. Okay. So Highlander
is $100 per square foot, your
words, extremely
cheap; am I right?
A. Let me get it clear
--
Q. Do you agree
Highlander, at $100 a square foot, was
extremely cheap?
A. The 183 applies only
to the restaurant; nothing else.
It is
800-and-something thousand, divided by
5,500 square feet.
It works out roughly -- what's that
-- eight and a half
thousand divided by five thousand --
Q. Do you agree that
the cost of piling and structural
works to --
A. The cost of --
Q. I haven't finished.
I will finish; then you can answer.
The cost of
piling and structural works for the
brewery is quite
unique, in that you can't compare
17:14 construction of a
brewery with the fitting-out of a
night spot; do you
agree?
A. You cannot compare
it, and I'm not doing that.
Q. Okay. Good. Do you
agree that insofar as your cost
overruns of your
brewery is concerned, it arose from the
type of brewing
equipment used?
A. There is only one
type of brewing equipment that you --
Q. The type that you
have used here? Do you agree that
that is one of the
factors?
A. One of the factors
in the high cost --
COURT: Do you agree
that that is one of the factors?
MR SREENIVASAN: The
cost of the brewery.
A. I'm trying to recall
the question, your Honour. I
apologise.
Q. Okay, then ask me;
I'll repeat the question.
A. Would you repeat the
question?
Q. I would.
Mr Graham, do
you agree that the type of brewery
used is one of the
factors -- brewing equipment used is
one of the factors?
A. In -- in what?
Q. In the cost of the
brewery.
A. Yes, the brewery
cost.
Q. Okay. Do you agree
that the type of structure that is
needed for the
brewery is one of the factors?
17:15 A. I agree.
Q. Do you agree that
the soil condition is one of the
factors?
A. I agree.
Q. Do you agree that Mr
Poole, or his company, didn't have
anything to do with
the soil condition?
A. I agree.
Q. Do you agree that
they didn't have anything to do with
the required
structure?
A. I agree.
Q. Do you agree that
they didn't have anything to do with
the choice of the
brewing equipment?
A. I agree.
Q. So we are down to
the $183 per square foot for the
restaurant; am I
right?
A. No. No. Because Mr
Poole assured me that Mason Works'
prices were fair and
reasonable. He assured me
repeatedly --
COURT: That's not the
point.
A. And therefore my --
COURT: Are we down to
$183 --
MR SREENIVASAN: Per
square foot for the restaurant?
COURT: That's the
question. Are you down to that? Is that
calculation correct?
A. The restaurant was
183 --
17:16 MR SREENIVASAN: Yes.
A. I would have to go
through the calculation again, your
Honour.
Q. Okay. Never mind.
A. Just to make sure
exactly what is in there. It's a very
large --
Q. Okay. I'll rephrase
my question.
A. -- a very large
project, and without going into various
sections, I'd have
to do some calculation --
Q. Let me rephrase my
question. We now have to decide
whether Mason Works'
$183 per square foot was fair and
reasonable; am I
right?
A. Correct.
Q. And if that's fair
and reasonable, Poole Associates and
Ed Poole are off the
hook for your $550,000 claim. Am I
right?
A. That's a
generality. I would say that has to be
examined.
Q. Okay.
Just one last
short area. Your Honour, if I can
push through, I
would rather finish today.
COURT: How long will it
take?
MR SREENIVASAN: Not
more than five minutes, your Honour.
COURT: Please proceed.
MR SREENIVASAN: Yes.
17:17 Can I go to
Chris Shelley's affidavit. And can we
go to page 117 of
his affidavit.
Sorry, not 117.
A. I'm lost.
Q. If you can go to
Chris Shelley's affidavit and turn to
page 7. Sorry.
Have you got
it? It's a project table.
A. Page 7?
Q. Yeah.
A. I'm struggling.
Q. Have you got it?
It's the first exhibit.
A. Yes, I have it.
Q. Thank you. And this
is the time lines that was being
done on -- if you
look at the bottom left corner,
13 July 2006. Am I
right?
A. That's what it says.
Q. To hit the opening
on 2nd October 2006. Am I right?
A. Correct.
Q. And if we were to
look at this, this would show us how
the sequence of
works would be done; am I right?
A. This is a Gantt
chart analysing time lines.
Q. Yeah. And according
to this chart, among some of the
items is order
kitchen, manufacture kitchen, install
kitchen. Can you
see that?
A. I can see that.
17:19 Q. Was the kitchen
ordered by 10th of July?
A. I do not recall
exactly when the kitchen was ordered.
It was never a
problem.
Q. It was never...?
A. Never a problem.
Q. I can't hear you.
A. It was never a
problem, the kitchen.
Q. No, but I want to
know when it was ordered?
A. I don't recall.
Q. Let's look at other
items along this path. We know --
if you look at item
8, we know the cold room
micro-piling was
done three or four months late -- can
you see that? Do
you agree?
A. I am trying to find
the --
COURT: It's item 8.
A. Yes, it was supposed
to be done at the end of July,
according to this
timeline and it was done --
Q. Now, at the end of
July, RSP Architects have not even
come out with a
structural drawing; am I right?
A. Correct.
Q. Mr Chris Shelley
must have been dreaming when he drew
this chart to show
the micro-piling starting in July; am
I right?
A. It's sounds
optimistic, I have to agree.
Q. "Optimistic", Mr
Graham? You said it takes two months
17:20 to get BC approval
for structural work; am I right?
A. Mr Shelley may not
have been aware of timing of that.
Q. So Mr Shelley's
chart here -- he must have been
an ignoramus; am I
right?
A. We are talking about
the brewery here, which is not an
issue in terms of --
(simultaneous speakers - unclear)
--
Q. It doesn't matter.
But he must have been an ignoramus;
am I right? No
structural drawing, no submission and,
guess what, he
expects to see piling done in 8 days,
time -- sorry, 5
days, after he prepares this table.
A. Mr Shelley was no
the project manager, and this --
Q. No. Hang on.
COURT: That's not
relevant.
MR SREENIVASAN: This is
absolute rubbish, isn't it?
A. Based on the
comments you have made, he is
super-optimistic in
getting approvals.
Q. No, he's not
super-optimistic, I don't want to use the
word -- he must have
been high on something, because it
couldn't have been
done; am I right?
A. Correct.
Q. And he was ordering
your brewery equipment and arranging
with Ed Poole on
brewery drawings; am I right?
A. The brewery was
ordered by this time.
Q. Say again?
17:21 A. The brewery was
delivered on 1 August.
Q. Hang on. But Mr Ed
Poole has to include the brewery in
his layout drawings;
am I right?
A. Correct.
Q. He has to draw the
vats in, in the space provided; am I
right?
A. Yes. He had
actually done so.
Q. Yes, he had done so,
and then he had given it to RSP
Architects; am I
right?
A. Correct.
Q. And the only thing
he did wrong is that he should have
said, in terms of
the delay, why don't we split up the
two; am I right?
A. Well, Mr Poole was
aware of the fact that we had a flow
loading problem as
early as --
Q. Correct?
A. -- early May.
Q. According to you, he
should have -- (unclear --
simultaneous
speakers) --
A. I would love him to
have worked very positively with
RSP.
COURT: Get to the
point.
MR SREENIVASAN: He
should have split it up?
A. He should have
worked more aggressively with RSP to get
faster approval on
micro-piling. It was far too slow,
17:22 and I believe a
project manager who was on top of it and
was there would have
very much accelerated the approval
of the micro-piling.
Q. And this belief of
yours -- (simultaneous speakers -
unclear) --
A. I -- (simultaneous
speakers - unclear) -- blame Mr Poole
for not taking it
forward fast enough.
Q. And this belief of
yours is based on your knowledge of
the construction
industry?
A. It's based on the
knowledge that I cannot understand why
Mr Poole was not
actively on the case with RSP.
Q. What is it he should
have done to make the micro-piling
faster?
A. What was it that
caused the problem? What was the
delay?
Q. Sorry, you're saying
he should have done something --
A. He should have
liaised very aggressively with RSP to
make sure there was
no delay in getting this through.
There is no reason
why it should have taken that long.
It happened at the
end of never. It should have
happened two months
later.
Q. Why? What is it he
should have done? The only words
I have heard now, Mr
Graham, is "raised aggressively".
Now, it's a new
term, you are saying he could make the
piling go faster by
raising aggressively. Explain it.
17:23 A. Mr Poole should have
made sure that the micro-piling was
accelerated as
quickly as possible, I do not believe it
was useful --
Q. How? How? I built
my house, Mr Graham, I thought I was
going to get it done
in nine months; I moved in
18 months later,
without doors and a banister, and my
wife was the project
manager and she's about as
aggressive as you
get.
Tell me what Mr
Poole should have done.
A. Mr Poole should have
made sure that the micro-piling
requests were
accelerated as quickly as possible.
Q. How?
A. I don't know. He's
the expert.
Q. Have you asked RSP
Architects why they were slow in
their structural
drawings?
A. I have not, no.
Q. You chose to pick on
him and his clients, rather than
pick on RSP
Architects, is it?
A. I hold the project
manager responsible.
Q. May I suggest to you
that you have previously got
discounts in your
projects by counterclaiming exorbitant
sums and you think
this will work again -- agree or
disagree?
A. Disagree totally.
Q. Now do you agree
that Ed Poole personally setting up
17:25 Poole & Associates
and running it for 16 years, doing
50-over projects,
shows that he has operated Poole
Associates as a
separate business entity, and now you
can draw on your
experience as a commercial man and
accountant and give
an honest answer.
A. Repeat the question,
please.
Q. The fact that he has
run Poole Associates for 16 years
as a separate entity
and has done 50-over projects shows
that he and Poole
Associates are two separate entities?
A. Poole Associates,
the last time I looked at the figures,
had a negative net
worth and was bankrupt. It was kept
afloat presumably
because Mr Poole was financing it
personally.
In 2003, the
last time the accounts were available
the total turnover
of the company was 176,000 --
Q. Could you answer my
question first?
A. Mr Poole and Poole
Associates are in fact two separate
legal entities. Mr
Poole is, however, in my mind the
person behind Poole
Associates.
Q. Mr Graham, I agree
with you 110 per cent, that Mr Poole
is the person behind
Poole Associates, and is that the
only premise that
you are going after him personally?
A. Of course not. I
fully recognise the ramifications of
the veil of
incorporation. I'm after Mr Poole because
according to the
email that I have seen from
17:26 Mr Robinson, Mr
Poole is actively destroying the value
in Poole Associates
to evade the responsibilities of
this suit, actively
destroying the value. He
specifically is
cancelling projects, which is damaging
the company, and
therefore -- (simultaneous speakers -
unclear) --
Q. What was the date of
this email?
A. The email -- I would
have to check.
Q. It was in April of
-- let's see the date of this suit --
April of 2007; am I
right?
A. I believe that's the
correct date.
Q. And when did you
join Ed Poole as a defendant?
A. I joined Ed Poole as
a defendant -- I forget exactly
when. I would have
to check that.
Q. I think it was
either July or September 2007. You see,
Mr --
A. It was a little
after, but the --
Q. The date of your
writ, Mr Graham, is 4 May 2007; am I
right?
A. And the date of the
email was when?
Q. Was April 2007.
A. But that's when it
was received by Mr Robinson, not
received by me.
Q. Mr Graham, I'm
suggesting to you that you have joined
Ed Poole personally
because, God knows, the personal
17:28 relationship between
the two of you is really bad, and
you want to hit him
personally.
A. I would be --
Q. You can agree or
disagree.
A. I disagree. I do
not feel any deep resentment.
MR SRINEEVASAN: If you
disagree, that's fine. No further
questions, your
Honour.
COURT: Right. We will
stop at this juncture.
(5.28 pm)
(The hearing
adjourned until 10.00 am on
Tuesday, 4 November
2008)
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