In Remus Innovation v. Jeep Chee, the former, an Austrian car exhaust systems manufacturer, sued the latter, Singapore specialists in and importers of car exhaust systems, for copyright infringement and passing off. The Singapore High Court refused to grant a temporary injunction to the manufacturer to restrain the importers from dealing in their products, whatever their source, on the ground that the goods were the genuine ones manufactured by Remus.

Jeep Chee had been in the trade for over 25 years and had since 1993 been dealing in the Austrian company's exhaust systems which were imported from an authorized dealer in England. The High Court refused Remus' application for a temporary injunction to restrain Jeep Chee from dealing in products they obtained from England and ruled that, if an unauthorized agent had access to the genuine products from a foreign market, they could deal in them legally, without the consent of the authorized local agent.

Remus argued that the only authorized dealer of their products in Singapore was Fong Kim Exhaust Systems, which provided the manufacturer's warranties to customers, and that Jeep Chee were passing themselves off as authorized dealers and damaging Remus' reputation. Jeep Chee argued that there was no law barring them from selling parallel imports, i.e. the genuine goods made by the Austrian manufacturer.

The High Court was of the view that Remus' copyright infringement claim was unfounded because they were unable to show that the products were made without their consent.

Remus filed an appeal from this decision and the Court of Appeals allowed it in part granting a temporary injunction restraining Jeep Chee from passing themselves off as authorized dealers of Remus' products. However, the Court of Appeals refused to reverse the decision insofar as it granted a temporary injunction restraining the defendant from dealing in products made by Remus.

This important case is the first one in which the Singapore courts have decided to permit genuine goods to be brought into the country as parallel imports, regardless of their source, and it is expected to have a strong impact on the parallel import trade in Singapore.