Oakwell Engineering Ltd v Enernorth Industries Inc was an appeal to the Court of Appeal for Ontario by Enernorth Industries Inc. (Enernorth), a Canadian company, from a judgment of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice granting an application brought by Oakwell Engineering Limited (Oakwell), a Singaporean company, for an order recognizing and enforcing in Ontario a judgment granted against Enernorth by the High Court of Singapore on October 16, 2003 and affirmed by the Court of Appeal of Singapore on April 27, 2004. The case is notable because Enernorth claimed that the Singapore judgment should not be recognized in Canada because judicial standards in Singapore were not the same as those in Canada. Among other things, Enernorth alleged that links between the judiciary, business and the executive arm in Singapore suggested a real risk of bias. According to analyst Michael Backman, if Enernorth's appeal to the Ontario Court of Appeal had succeeded, this might have had the effect of dissuading companies from using Singaporean law for arbitration and trial, and calling into question the fairness of the Singaporean legal system. However, Enernorth lost its appeal before the Court of Appeal, and was refused leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada. History of case Oakwell and Enernorth formed a joint venture in June 1997 to build two barge-mounted power stations in Andhra Pradesh, India. However, the licenses necessary for the project were never obtained, and a new Indian government requirement to use natural gas instead of furnace oil made the project infeasible. Oakwell commenced arbitration against Enernorth for failure to release the funds for the project. The two sides signed a Settlement Agreement in December 1998, agreeing that the earlier contract was "terminated" and "discharged", and that Enernorth was "released" from any obligations under the contract. Oakwell sold its stake in the venture to Enernorth. Enernorth paid an initial sum to Oakwell and agreed to pay the remainder within 30 days of "financial closure". However, Enernorth later posited that as the Indian government had not granted the licenses necessary, the project had not achieved "financial closure", and according to Enernorth's lawyers, the Agreement "did not contain any express obligation on Enernorth to procure financial closure". Enernorth sold its remaining stake to an Indian company in 2000. Court cases in Singapore In 2002, Oakwell sued Enernorth in the High Court of Singapore to obtain the further payment. The court found