Background
The claimant, Altitude Xperience Pte Ltd (formerly Skyventure VWT Singapore Pte Ltd), leases the iFly Building at Siloso Beach, Sentosa. In December 2017, Simba Telecom — Singapore’s fourth and newest mobile carrier — installed transmission equipment at two locations in the building: a rooftop space and a ground-floor space. The parties operated initially under an oral arrangement, eventually reduced to a written licence agreement (the “Amended First LA”) that was backdated to 21 December 2017 and covered only the period ending 19 September 2018. Subsequent negotiations over a further written licence for the following two-year period collapsed, and Simba’s equipment has remained in situ ever since without any agreed written extension.
The central dispute arose in two layers. First, the parties disagreed about whether a payment of $35,310 made by Simba on 27 April 2020 was (as the claimant maintained) the licence fee due for September 2018 to September 2019 under an oral agreement, or (as Simba maintained) a goodwill or “transition” payment made in anticipation of conversion to a rent-free regime. Second, Simba contended that, from 15 December 2018 when IMDA’s Code of Practice for Info-communication Facilities in Buildings 2018 (COPIF) came into force under s 23 of the Telecommunications Act 1999, it became entitled under paragraph 2.2.1 of COPIF to occupy the spaces as “mobile installation space” (MIS) at no charge to itself, because the spaces were “suitable unused spaces” within the meaning of paragraph 2.2.9(e) of COPIF.
IMDA itself entered the fray: on 2 June 2021 it issued a formal decision under paragraph 2.2.10 of COPIF finding that the Rooftop Space was not “unused space” and therefore did not constitute MIS. Simba sought a review, which IMDA dismissed on 13 December 2022, and then lodged a ministerial appeal under s 89 of the Act. Despite those regulatory proceedings, Simba’s equipment has not been removed, and the claimant brought the present action for unpaid licence fees, trespass damages, and an order to vacate and reinstate the spaces.
The Court’s Holding
Lee Seiu Kin SJ resolved the first issue firmly against Simba. The documentary record was overwhelming: Simba’s own representative Ms Koh confirmed by email on 2 April 2020 that Simba agreed to pay licence and service fees for September 2018 to September 2019; the claimant issued an invoice on 17 April 2020 for exactly $35,310 covering 12 months of charges at the agreed rates; and Simba paid that exact sum seven days later. Simba’s own internal accounting records linked the payment to that specific invoice. By contrast, Simba’s sole witness on the point — its Chief Technology Officer, who had only joined the company in January 2020 — offered no documentary support for the goodwill-payment theory and could not substantiate it under cross-examination. The court held that the $35,310 was paid pursuant to the 17 April 2020 invoice as licence fees for that period. It further found that the parties reached no oral or implied agreement for use of the spaces after 20 September 2019.
On the COPIF question, the court noted that while s 23(4) of the Telecommunications Act provides that a code of practice issued thereunder has no legislative effect, s 23(5) nonetheless requires every affected owner and licensee to comply with it, making COPIF binding on both parties. The court examined paragraphs 2.2.1 and 2.2.9(e) of COPIF, which together require building owners to provide MIS only in “suitable unused spaces.” Because IMDA — the authority empowered under paragraph 2.2.10 of COPIF to determine such disputes — had formally decided in June 2021 that the Rooftop Space was not “unused space” and therefore not MIS, Simba’s foundational defence to trespass fell away: it had no regulatory entitlement to occupy the spaces rent-free. The court accepted IMDA’s reasoning and noted IMDA had also recognised the claimant’s competing need to install air-conditioning condenser units in that space. Simba’s occupation of the spaces after 20 September 2019 without agreement or regulatory entitlement therefore constituted trespass.
The court also clarified the contractual chronology: the Second Licence Agreement (a 36-month agreement backdated to 19 September 2017) was superseded and rendered ineffective once the parties executed the Amended First LA, which covered a different and overlapping period. Simba’s own defence had accepted this position.
Key Takeaways
- COPIF paragraph 2.2.1 obliges building owners to provide MIS only in “suitable unused spaces”; spaces already commercially occupied and needed for the owner’s own operational purposes fall outside that obligation, as confirmed by IMDA’s binding determination under paragraph 2.2.10.
- A payment matching exactly the amount on a specific invoice, made days after that invoice was issued and recorded in the payer’s own accounts against that invoice, will be treated as payment of the invoiced debt — not a goodwill or settlement payment — in the absence of contemporaneous documentation to the contrary.
- IMDA’s statutory process under COPIF paragraph 2.2.10 (and the ministerial appeal under s 89 of the Telecommunications Act) is the prescribed route for resolving disputes about whether a space qualifies as MIS; a telco that loses that process cannot use the COPIF regime as a shield to a trespass claim in court.
- A subsequent written agreement covering an overlapping period supersedes an earlier unexecuted or inconsistent licence agreement, even where both instruments are backdated.
Why It Matters
This decision provides important clarity at the intersection of Singapore’s COPIF regime and private property rights. Since COPIF came into force in December 2018, building owners and mobile operators across Singapore have been negotiating — often contentiously — over which rooftop and building spaces must be provided as rent-free MIS. The judgment confirms that COPIF’s obligation is not a blanket entitlement: a telco must first establish that the target space qualifies as “unused,” and where IMDA has already decided it does not, that finding is determinative for trespass purposes. The decision also signals that a telco’s continued occupation pending regulatory appeals does not immunise it from a trespass claim.
For practitioners advising building owners or telecommunications licensees, the case is a useful reminder that goodwill payments or informal compromise gestures must be documented unambiguously at the time of payment — particularly given the overlapping contractual, regulatory, and tortious frameworks that govern telco infrastructure siting disputes in Singapore.