Two Singapore lawyers have been fined SGD $5000 each for citing two fictitious cases in a lawsuit in Singapore High Court using Generative AI. 

According to a judgement passed by Judge S. Mohan on Friday, the two lawyers- Goh Peck San and Amarjit Singh Sidhu- have been fined a collective fine of SGD $10,000, as “personal costs order against solicitor” for using Artificial Intelligence to cite fictitious authority.

“Courts are increasingly encountering cases in which either legal submissions have been prepared with the use of AI tools or such tools have been relied on for legal research and which have “hallucinated” plausible sounding but entirely fabricated legal authorities. In my view, this phenomenon, if left unchecked, poses a serious threat to the administration of justice in Singapore, which relies heavily on lawyers to “ensure that the evidence and arguments adduced before the court are skilfully, accurately and fairly presented”, said Judge S. Mohan in his judgement order passed on March 6.

The case pertained to lawyer Goh Peck San, acting as solicitor for a party of four brothers, who are defendants in a loan recovery lawsuit in the High Court of Singapore last year.

According to Judge Mohan, Goh Peck San cited two fictitious cases in his submission to the court, which was flagged by the claimant’s counsel during the proceedings. Upon further questioning by the judge, San confessed to the court that the fake cases had been provided by a fellow solicitor Amarjit Singh Sidhu, whom he had engaged to assist with research.

Incidentally, none of the two lawyers were able to tell the judge exactly which Gen AI tool was used in their submission to the court, however, the judge S. Mohan observed that it was beyond obvious that AI has been used to cite made up cases.

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