Goldbell Capital Sdn Bhd v 1. ) ST Healthcare Group Sdn Bhd 2. ) Safarudin Bin Tambi

Case Significance

Illustrates the refusal of an irrelevant late amendment and the entry of Order 14 summary judgment on hire purchase agreements, where an alleged but unconcluded assignment to a non-party does not affect the borrower's liability to pay.

This High Court decision at Shah Alam resolves, together, an application by a financier for summary judgment under Order 14 of the Rules of Court 2012 and an application by the defendants for leave to amend their defence under Order 20. The plaintiff had financed the defendants under hire purchase agreements, with an individual defendant standing behind the corporate borrower, and sued for the outstanding sums on default. The defendants sought to amend their defence to introduce a factual matrix concerning the intended assignment of the hire purchase agreements to a third entity that was not a party to those agreements.

The court dealt first with the amendment application. It found that the proposed amendment was irrelevant to the plaintiff's main cause of action and had strayed too far from the defence already filed, amounting in substance to a new defence raising irrelevant issues about a third entity that was not a party to the hire purchase agreements. It accordingly dismissed the amendment application with costs.

Turning to summary judgment, the court held that the defendants had failed to show any triable issue. It was not persuaded that the hire purchase agreements had been effectively assigned to the third entity, since the plaintiff was not privy to any intended sale and purchase between the defendants and that entity, and any knowledge on the part of a representative did not bind the plaintiff. In any event, the alleged assignment was irrelevant to the defendants' obligation to settle the outstanding sum, and the intended sale and purchase agreement had not been concluded, so no valid assignment had yet arisen, leaving the defendants liable. Satisfied that the requirements of an Order 14 application were sufficiently proved, the court entered summary judgment as prayed, with costs. The judgment illustrates the refusal of an irrelevant late amendment and the entry of summary judgment where an alleged, unconcluded assignment does not affect the borrower's liability.