SYMPHONET SDN. BHD. v FIBERAIL SDN. BHD.

Case Significance

Illustrates the affirmation on appeal of Sessions Court summary judgment for a documented telecommunications services debt, and the restraint an appellate court exercises before disturbing a lower court's findings of fact.

This High Court decision at Shah Alam is an appeal from a Sessions Court that had entered summary judgment in a claim for the price of telecommunications network services. The respondent, Fiberail Sdn Bhd, a telecommunications network service provider, had sued the appellant, Symphonet Sdn Bhd, for an outstanding sum of RM407,322.81, relying on a Master Service Agreement of February 2017 under which it agreed to supply Ethernet/Metro-E services on the agreed terms; it pleaded that the appellant had breached the agreement by failing to pay for those services. The Sessions Court allowed the respondent's application for summary judgment with costs, and the appellant appealed. The court, per Rozi binti Bainon JC, dismissed the appeal and affirmed the Sessions Court's decision, with costs of the appeal. It found no error of fact or law in the Sessions Court's grounds: the supply and performance of the Ethernet/Metro-E services required the appellant to discharge its payment obligation, and the appellant's breach and default in ensuring continued payment for those services entitled the respondent to summary judgment, there being no need for the claim to go to trial. In exercising its appellate role the court applied the settled principle, drawn from Federal Court authority, that an appellate court should be slow to disturb the findings of fact of the court below unless those findings are unsupported by the evidence, against the weight of the evidence, or perverse, and it held that the appellant's defence had failed to answer the evidence adduced by the respondent through its affidavit. Finding the Sessions Court Judge's findings and interpretation of the law to be correct, the court declined to interfere. The judgment is a useful illustration of the affirmation on appeal of summary judgment for a documented services debt and of the restraint an appellate court exercises over a lower court's findings of fact.