Two lawyers ordered to bear personal cost of $5,000 each after citing fictitious cases

SINGAPORE – Two lawyers have been ordered to bear a cost of $5,000 each for their roles in mentioning two fictitious cases in a closing submission cited in court.

In a judgment on March 6, Justice S. Mohan said it was “plainly evident” that an AI tool had been used in the preparation of the draft.

While there is no inherent objection to the use of AI tools in the industry, Justice Mohan said such tools can play the part of only the “handmaiden”.

“The fundamental point remains that lawyers bear ultimate responsibility for ensuring that all materials placed before the court – including case authorities – are, without exception, true and accurate, and crucially, verified by them to be so,” said the judge, who added that AI tools will become an increasingly prevalent feature of the legal ecosystem.

The case surrounds the estate of the late Mr Tan Thuan Teck and three suits filed by his sons against the late Mr Tan’s brothers and their company. Mr Tan’s sons had filed the suits in 2023 to recover money their father had lent to his brothers and their company.

Justice Mohan, who presided over the trial in 2025, had found that Mr Tan’s sons, who are the co-executors of his estate, had made out their case, and ordered Mr Tan’s brothers and their company to pay them a sum of $180,000.

But the crux of his judgment on March 6 focused on the presence of two fictitious cases that the defendant’s counsel, Mr Goh Peck San, had cited in his closing submissions.

The fictitious cases were discovered by the claimant’s lawyer.

Court documents showed Mr Goh had engaged another solicitor, Mr Amarjit Singh Sidhu, to assist him in carrying out research to draft his closing submissions, which included Case A and Case B.

Case A was later found to be made up of real cases with a neutral citation belonging to an entirely different case. Case B was entirely fictitious.

After the discrepancies were highlighted, Mr Goh acknowledged that both cases were fictitious. He explained that the cases had been provided by another solicitor that he had engaged to assist with research, but did not identify the lawyer.

After Mr Goh was directed by the court to identify the solicitor and to confirm if the research for his closing submissions had been generated using an artificial intelligence tool, he informed the court that Mr Sidhu was the lawyer he had engaged.

In a letter to the court, Mr Sidhu said the initial research and draft of the submissions had been prepared by a paralegal who had since left his firm. He said he was unaware if any AI tools had been used by the paralegal, but conceded that he had overlooked the two fictitious cases.

But Mr Goh and Mr Sidhu were directed to provide further details on the steps they had taken to verify the accuracy and existence of the fictitious cases cited in Mr Goh’s submissions.

Mr Goh subsequently said it did not occur to him that Mr Sidhu would have used AI tools in his research.

He said he did not verify the existence of the fictitious cases cited due to time constraints and his workload. But he added that he had communicated with Mr Sidhu via WhatsApp before presenting his submissions in court, and that both of them had been unable to find certain cited cases mentioned in the closing submissions.

In response to the messages, Mr Sidhu had advised Mr Goh to refrain from relying on those citations.

Justice Mohan said: “I found it extraordinary that between Mr Goh and Mr Sidhu, the issue fell between two stools and neither solicitor took the time or trouble of actually verifying the existence and veracity of the fictitious (case) authorities.”

Mr Sidhu also told the court that he had been unable to speak to the paralegal who helped to prepare the initial research and draft, as the paralegal had become uncontactable.

The claimant’s lawyer said a personal cost order should be imposed on Mr Goh and Mr Sidhu – suggesting that they bear a cost of between $1,500 and $1,600.

Mr Goh and Mr Sidhu agreed they should jointly bear the costs and pay $1,500. The pair requested for the matter to be resolved privately such that it is not reflected in a court order.

But that was rejected by Justice Mohan, who said the proposed quantum of $1,500 for both lawyers is “plainly inadequate”, before ordering that the lawyers each pay a sum of $5,000 instead.

The judge said: “I observe that the troubling issue of counsel relying on AI-generated case authorities, without verification of their existence or accuracy, is attracting mounting concern in a number of jurisdictions.”

He said that Mr Goh should have removed all references of the two cases when he could not find their existence, and replaced them with references to actual cases.

Mr Sidhu should have also recognised that a paralegal is not qualified to prepare written submissions without supervision, and that he himself should have cross-checked the cited cases.