Ex-insurance agent gets to keep $4m in damages, less 20 per cent
Payout is largest in case of alleged unfair reference check in insurance industry here
Ex-AXA Life Insurance agent Ramesh Krishnan, who was awarded $4 million in damages last year, will get to keep 80 per cent of it.
The payout is the largest reported sum in a case involving an alleged unfair reference check in the insurance industry. The Court of Appeal, in hearing AXA Insurance's appeal against last year's High Court judgment, ruled that Mr Ramesh was entitled to $3.2 million plus interest.
In August last year, the High Court awarded $4.026 million to Mr Ramesh, 48, formerly with AXA, after a scathing letter of reference from AXA cost him the chance to join rival insurer Prudential.
The award was for loss of earnings from the negligence on the part of AXA Life Insurance Singapore.
Justice George Wei had said then that both sides were at "polar opposites" at quantifying damages, with Mr Ramesh seeking $63 million and AXA urging a nominal sum of $1.
The appeal court, comprising Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon and Senior Judge Chao Hick Tin, said of Mr Ramesh: "We are of the view that he has established his basic case for damages in so far as he has shown in the evidence, including production figures in 2010, that he had performed very well at AXA."
In the Appeal Court hearing in August, AXA, represented by Rajah & Tann lawyers K. Muralidharan Pillai and Luo QingHui, accepted Mr Ramesh had suffered substantial damage but challenged the quantum of losses awarded by the High Court.
Lawyers Eugene Thuraisingam and Suang Wijaya from Eugene Thuraisingam LLP, representing Mr Ramesh, disputed the claims, arguing the quantum sought was a fair estimate of his losses based on his performance at AXA and projected payouts at Prudential.
The court held a 20 per cent reduction was appropriate, taking into account he had "done very well at AXA and had taken a smaller remuneration package with Prudential".
The court ordered 2.665 per cent interest payable on the damages awarded from Aug 1, 2011, which was the day he would have joined Prudential, to Aug 14, 2017, when the High Court made its decision.
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