D AMAN CRIMSON MANAGEMENT CORPORATION v 1. ) MATRIX PARKING SOLUTION SDN BHD 2. ) SIMPLEX EQUITY SDN BHD 3. ) CHIN WING WAH 4. ) SUKUMARAN A/L K.S.NAIR 5. ) MAJLIS BANDARAYA PETALING JAYA

Case Significance

Illustrates the application of the American Cyanamid test alongside the full-and-frank-disclosure and undertaking-as-to-damages requirements under Order 29 rule 1(2A) of the Rules of Court 2012 to an ex parte injunction over boomgate structures on strata common property.

This High Court decision concerns competing interlocutory applications arising from a dispute over car-park boomgate structures erected on the common property of a strata development. The plaintiff is the Management Corporation of the scheme; the first and second defendants operate and own car-park lots designated as accessory parcels within it. After the Management Corporation gave notice that it would remove the automatic barrier gate, access-card machine and guard post controlling access to the development, the first and second defendants obtained an ex parte injunction from another High Court restraining the Management Corporation from dismantling those structures, cutting their power or interfering with them pending trial. The Management Corporation applied to set that order aside, and the defendants' application for an inter partes injunction was heard together with it. Applying the American Cyanamid framework, the court asked whether there were bona fide serious questions to be tried, whether damages would be an adequate remedy and where the balance of convenience lay. It dismissed the inter partes injunction, and allowed the application to set aside the ex parte order in part, on the grounds that there had not been full and frank disclosure and that no undertaking as to damages had been given, as Order 29 rule 1(2A) of the Rules of Court 2012 requires. The court was careful to add that dismissing the injunction was not an endorsement of pre-emptive self-help: it reminded the Management Corporation that, although the boomgate structures stand on common property, the second defendant remains the registered proprietor of the car-park accessory parcels until the substantive dispute is decided, and that any unwarranted exercise of the Management Corporation's powers, including its earlier pre-emptive conduct, may be taken into account in the assessment of damages. The judgment is a useful illustration of the interplay between the American Cyanamid test and the disclosure and undertaking requirements that govern ex parte injunctions, in the specific context of common property and accessory parcels under strata management.