I feature the Top 5 Arbitration Cases in Malaysia for the year 2021. This follows the past editions of the 2020 cases and the 2019 cases.
This year-end review covers the issues on the seat of arbitration for West Malaysia and East Malaysia, the stay of arbitration proceedings, court reliefs after the issuance of the arbitral award, the availability of the Mareva injunction interim measure, and the grant of an anti-arbitration injunction.
We start this year’s Top 5 cases series with a feature on the Top 5 Company Law Cases in Malaysia for 2021 (see the 2020 Company Law Cases edition and the 2019 Company Law Cases edition).
This list will cover decisions on shareholder’s oppression, the shadow director, indemnity for officers, pre-emptive right and adjourned general meetings.
On 16 December 2021, Scomi Group Berhad (Scomi) made a stock exchange announcement that the Court of Appeal granted an interim preservation order to prevent legal proceedings against Scomi. In effect, Scomi seems to have obtained a moratorium against all legal proceedings despite the dismissal of its earlier judicial management application. There are some interesting issues that arise from this development. Continue reading
on 16 December 2021, the Dewan Rakyat of Parliament passed the Temporary Measures for Reducing the Impact of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) (Amendment) Bill 2021. I will refer to this as the Covid-19 Amendment Bill or the Bill.
The Covid-19 Amendment Bill introduces a new Part XIA as additional modifications to housing development laws.
I wanted to touch on the 5 significant amendments that will affect housing developers and purchasers.
The Singapore Court of Appeal in AnAn Group (Singapore) Pte Ltd v VTB Bank (Public Joint Stock Company) [2021] SGCA 112 dealt with an important and novel area of winding up law. If a winding up order is subsequently reversed or set aside, who should pay for all the winding up expenses, including the liquidator’s fees?
While this is a Singapore decision, it would be persuasive in Malaysia as our laws are similar. The aim of this update is to focus on this key issue and set out the takeaway points to apply in a Malaysian context.
The Hong Kong Court of First Instance in Yan Yu Ying v Leong Wing Hei [2021] HKCFI 3160 granted a temporary proprietary injunction to restrain 999 bitcoins (value close to US$50 million) being the subject matter of a dispute between the parties.
This case shows the consistent trend of Courts treating cryptocurrency such as Bitcoin as ‘property’ that can be subject to an injunction.
In this case, the Court granted what is known in Hong Kong as an “interim-interim injunction”. It is similar to what is known in Malaysia as an ad interim injunction. It is a temporary measure to balance the fairness before the full arguments are heard on whether to grant the full interim injunction. Interim-interim injunctions or reliefs are a very short-term stop-gap measure.
