Tetuan Najib Hisham Isa v 1. ) Mohamed Basri bin Noor Mohamed 2. ) Nafisah binti Abdul Rahman

Case Significance

Instructive on a law firm's leave to enforce a costs agreement for contentious business against the client who signed it, and on the refusal of relief against a party who did not retain the firm, where a documented claim meets only a bare denial.

This High Court decision at Shah Alam concerns a law firm's application for leave to enforce a costs agreement and recover legal fees for contentious business. The plaintiff, a law firm, applied for payment of RM776,400.00 said to be due under an agreement for costs for work done for the defendants, a client and his mother. According to the plaintiff's affidavit, the defendants had been investigated by the authorities for offences under section 420 of the Penal Code and section 4(1) of the Anti-Money Laundering, Anti-Terrorism Financing and Proceeds of Unlawful Activities Act 2001, in the course of which freezing orders were made over their vehicles; the first defendant appointed the firm to act for himself and his mother by a warrant to act and a proposal for legal service, signed a written agreement to pay the firm RM1.6 million in fees, paid a deposit, and later, on a restructuring of the fees, gave an undertaking to pay RM700,000 if the matters were resolved. The firm attended the first defendant's police statement, made representations to the Attorney General's Chambers, filed cause papers to release the vehicles, and secured a consent judgment between the first defendant and the complainant, before billing RM776,400.00, which remained unpaid. The court found that the plaintiff's claim was supported by contemporaneous documents, while the first defendant's response was a mere denial of the agreement and the second defendant, who had not herself appointed the firm, remained silent. The court also dismissed a late application by the defendants, which invoked a separate suit to set aside the consent judgment for fraud, as filed at the eleventh hour, lacking substance and amounting to an abuse of process, noting that the first defendant remained free to seek a refund of fees in that separate suit. The court accordingly allowed the application against the first defendant only, granting leave to enforce the costs agreement and directing him to pay RM776,400.00 with interest at 5% per annum from the date of the bill, while dismissing the application against the second defendant. The judgment is instructive on enforcing a solicitor's costs agreement for contentious business against a client who signed it.