But a lot of brain-power will now be expended on this question: Just who owns a document discarded as rubbish?

A full trial will determine the answer, following the Court of Appeal's ruling on Tuesday that it is an important issue that needs delving into.

And 'delving into' someone's trash is just what a certain private investigator did.

Hired by creditors to dig up information on a pair of companies here, he got hold of allegedly confidential papers by sifting through what had been thrown out.

The case came before the Court of Appeal on a point of procedure, but Justice V. K. Rajah, giving a written judgment, also touched on the substantive issue.

Rubbish disposal, he noted, is usually thought of as a mundane matter and taken for granted - until a case like this one crops up.

The creditors are a group of United States-based investment funds who are here to enforce a US$75 million judgment they won in the New York State Supreme Court against Indonesia's PT Indah Kiat Pulp & Paper.

Indah Kiat is a unit of Asia Pulp & Paper, one of the world's largest pulp and paper companies, which defaulted on US$14 billion in debt in 2001.

The creditors wanted information on Vestwin Trading and Hilltree Enterprise, which they believe are linked to Indah Kiat.

The private eye they hired went through bags of trash in the bin centre at Orchard Towers, where the firms have offices, and found papers, with which the creditors obtained a Mareva injunction to freeze Indah Kiat's assets.

Vestwin and Hilltree, represented by Senior Counsel Vinodh Coomaraswamy, then sued the creditors and the private eye, claiming that they had used improper means to get the documents.

Read the full report in Wednesday's edition of The Straits Times.