MCO

Case Update: Another company’s retrenchment of employees due to COVID-19/MCO deemed unfair by Industrial Court

Marcus van GeyzelLeave a comment

In this Case Update series, I share summaries of recent Malaysian court decisions to explore the current approach taken by the courts when deciding on employment-related issues. You can find all the posts in the series by clicking here, including case updates on other legal areas by TheMalaysianLawyer co-founder Lee Shih.

There was a very sharp rise in retrenchment numbers in Malaysia in 2020, particularly in the aftermath of the first Movement Control Order (MCO), which started in March 2020. We are now seeing Industrial Court decisions as a result of unfair dismissal complaints lodged by employees who had their employment terminated in the first half of 2020, and I expect we will continue to see a steady succession of these decisions in the coming months.

As I have often explained, while employers are legally entitled to dismiss employees where the retrenchment is for genuine reasons, employers must be able to show that the termination was not improperly motivated. I recently highlighted one case where the Industrial Court decided that the retrenchment of an employee, which the employer said was due to the challenges caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, was an unfair dismissal: “Case Update: Industrial Court finds retrenchment due to effects of COVID-19/MCO was unfair”.

In this article, I summarise four recent awards involving retrenchments carried out at the same time by the same employer, which the employer said was due to the effects of the MCO and pandemic:

  1. Mohamad Sahrul Bin Kahulan v. Lourdes Medical Services Sdn Bhd (Award No. 1295 of 2021).
  2. Gawri A/P Muthadakan v. Lourdes Medical Services Sdn Bhd (Award No. 1296 of 2021).
  3. Lalitha A/P Subramaniam v. Lourdes Medical Services Sdn Bhd (Award No. 1297 of 2021).
  4. Rasalechumi A/P Kanagaratnam v. Lourdes Medical Services Sdn Bhd (Award No. 1298 of 2021).
Continue reading →

COVID, MCO, and the Malaysian legal industry — Part 2: Work culture, mental health, jobs, and the future

The Malaysian LawyerLeave a comment

This market report is brought to you by The Malaysian Lawyer, co-founded by Lee Shih and Marcus van Geyzel.

This is Part 2 of our special market report on the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the various MCOs on the Malaysian legal industry. Before reading on, you should read Part 1, where we addressed the financial issues (paycuts, volume of legal work, and revenues), remote working, and technology.

In this second part, we report on the impact of the pandemic on office/work culture, how law firms addressed employee mental health issues, and examine how the industry could have done better in dealing with the various challenges, and what the future holds. Again, these findings are not our own conclusions, but are a collection of the views of several lawyers who very kindly took the time to share their experiences with us. Some have asked to remain anonymous.

Continue reading →

COVID, MCO, and the Malaysian legal industry — Part 1: Money (paycuts, revenue), remote working, and technology

The Malaysian LawyerLeave a comment

This market report is brought to you by The Malaysian Lawyer, co-founded by Lee Shih and Marcus van Geyzel.

If asked to think back to March 2020, when Malaysia first went into “lockdown” or a “Movement Control Order” (MCO), Malaysians may feel like the period of time that has passed has been the equivalent of several lifetimes. Or that it now seems to have gone quickly, and certainly doesn’t seem like it was 18 months ago. Or perhaps that it simultaneously feels like both a very long time and a very short time ago, in that time-bending perspective-warping haze that the pandemic seems to have permanently brought into our lives.

For the Malaysian legal industry, much has happened. If we cast our minds back to those early-MCO days, there was a scramble for lawyers to figure out how to operate outside of the office, without access to printed documents and files.

To be honest, some lawyers still haven’t quite figured it out, but there has been much progress overall. Compelled by the judiciary, lawyers shuffled out of the Stone Age and into conducting video trials online. The National and State Bars successfully convened their AGMs online (after a huge COVID scare from the in-person KL Bar AGM). Law firms rolled out pay-cuts, and freezed hiring, increments, and bonuses. As work dried up in some areas, many lawyers pivoted into new practice areas. Call ceremonies also moved online. Aspiring lawyers had to deal with huge delays to CLP exams and results.

There were lots of new law blogs launched (21 are still active), and law students, lawyers and firms were noticeably more active on LinkedIn (when TML wrote about Malaysian law firms on LinkedIn in 2019, we could only find 8 active accounts; when researching our latest law firm LinkedIn list, we found almost 80!) and Clubhouse (the biggest Malaysian legal Clubhouse club “Malaysian legal community“ has 3,600+ members).

Continue reading →

Case Update: Industrial Court finds retrenchment due to effects of COVID-19/MCO was unfair

Marcus van GeyzelLeave a comment

In this Case Update series, I share summaries of recent Malaysian court decisions to explore the current approach taken by the courts when deciding on employment-related issues. You can find all the posts in the series by clicking here, including case updates on other legal areas by TheMalaysianLawyer co-founder Lee Shih.

The Industrial Court recently decided that the retrenchment of an employee, which the employer said was due to the challenges caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, was an unfair dismissal. This decision shows that, while the courts will uphold genuine retrenchments as an option available to employers to ensure the financial viability and survival of their businesses, employers cannot simply cite the pandemic as an excuse to retrench employees without proper justification.

The award in Joseph Lim Chien Shiuh v. DTTLT Sdn Bhd (Award No. 1052 of 2021) dated 19 May 2021 should serve as a cautionary tale for employers. I expect we will see many more employees successfully challenging terminations carried out in 2020 and 2021 by businesses claiming to have been affected by the various lockdowns or Movement Control Orders (MCOs) and related restrictions.

Continue reading →

Lessons from Lockdown: How COVID-19 and remote working have changed the way we work

The Malaysian LawyerLeave a comment

2020 has been the year of COVID-19. The pandemic has affected every aspect of life in almost every corner of the globe. Apart from the devastating impact on health and lives, and the effect on economies everywhere which may take years to recover from, COVID-19 has changed the way we work. Malaysia’s Movement Control Order (“MCO”) meant that from 18 March, most businesses had to cease on-site operations. Many other countries also enforced similar restrictions.

As a result of restrictions, people the world over have had to get used to working from home. While the concept of remote working isn’t new (it may come as a surprise to many that Tim Ferriss’ classic “The 4-Hour Workweek” was published 13 years ago), before these restrictions most industries had resisted the shift to working away from the office. The COVID-19 restrictions have forced even the staunchest luddites to adopt remote working.

We sought the views of the following four individuals with links to the legal industry across Asia-Pacific to hear about their work-from-home experiences:

  1. Crystal Wong, a partner in the Energy, Infrastructure & Projects and International Arbitration Practice Group at LHAG.
  2. Gaythri Raman, the Managing Director, Southeast Asia at LexisNexis.
  3. Jeannette Tam, a Senior Managing Associate at Bird & Bird Hong Kong.
  4. Zamir Hamdy Hamdan, the Asst Vice President for Stakeholder Management in Astro Malaysia‘s Human Capital Division.

We’re sure you’ll enjoy reading their insights.

Continue reading →

Insights from two months of webinars

The Malaysian LawyerLeave a comment

There have been a few very noticeable changes in the Malaysian legal industry in 2020. Most of these are attributable to COVID-19 and the resultant restrictions under the Movement Control Order (MCO) since 18 March 2020, and subsequent on-going Conditional MCO.

One significant development was the proliferation of webinars. By the middle of April, it seemed like there was at least one webinar a day to tune into, depending on your area of interest. Almost all of these were free, with some requiring prior registration. In recent weeks we have seen the shift to paid webinars, and webinars will very likely be a mainstay for the foreseeable future. It is looking increasingly unlikely that big conferences will be possible for the rest of the year.

To gain some insights into the rise in popularity of webinars, particularly in the legal industry, there is probably no better person to hear from than Richard Wee. He was one of the first movers who promoted and hosted webinars during the MCO — both in collaboration with Brickfields Asia College (BAC), and through his own firm, Richard Wee Chambers (RWC). Richard has since hosted more than 20 webinars, covering a broad range of topics.

Continue reading →