I-Admin (Singapore) Pte Ltd v Hong Ying Ting [2020] SGCA 32 contact lenses and possessed a wealth of relevant confidential information for this purpose. A number of the plaintiff’s employees subsequently joined a rival company called “Aquilus”. Before leaving the plaintiff’s employ, they took confidential documents, without authorisation, to create a database of information from which Aquilus could extract useful information. As there were clear instances where the defendants had actually used the plaintiff’s materials for various purposes, the court was not required to address the question of whether the mere taking of confidential information, in the absence of use or disclosure, would constitute a breach of confidence. Nevertheless, the court summarised the positions taken in Imerman and Smith Kline before making the following observations (at [205]): [T]he courts have accepted that accessing, acquiring or threatening to abuse … confidential information may also form a breach of confidence. The turning point for this development seems to be an awareness that an obligation of confidence is ineluctably shaped by the particular facts of the case. I can imagine that the relationship between the parties, the manner in which confidential information was obtained, the measures taken to safeguard confidentiality, etc, would define the boundary of the defendants’ obligation of confidence and, in turn, affect the analysis of whether the obligation was indeed breached. Thus, whether there has been breach of confidence appears to be a question of fact and degree that must be regarded in its wider context. [emphasis in original] This dicta is useful in so far as it recognises the fluidity in the scope of a defendant’s obligation of confidence, in turn reiterating the fact that the wrongful loss interest may be infringed in a variety of situations outside actual use and disclosure. 61 With these considerations in mind, we set out a modified approach that should be taken in relation to breach of confidence claims. Preserving the first two requirements in Coco, a court should consider whether the information in 29