1. ) STRONGHOLD CYCLES SDN BHD 2. ) NG CHIK VOON 3. ) TAN SWEE HOE 4. ) CHENG TEN SIONG 5. ) KOAY KUAN KING v 1. ) GOH KIAN SIN 2. ) JUAN CHOW WEE 3. ) DIDI RESOURCES SDN BHD 4. ) SOO TONG YAM & SONS REALTY SDN BHD 5. ) MESSRS. SHAW & CO 6. ) GOH BROTHERS MOTORCYCLES SDN BHD

Case Significance

Illustrates the relevance-and-necessity threshold governing an application for discovery under Order 24 of the Rules of Court 2012, and the court's control over discovery to refuse categories of documents that are irrelevant or unnecessary to the pleaded issues.

This High Court decision at Shah Alam concerns an interlocutory application for discovery of documents under Order 24 of the Rules of Court 2012 in a commercial dispute connected with a business of importing, distributing and selling premium motorcycles. The plaintiffs, a company and its board of controlling directors, had brought claims alleging breach of fiduciary duties, breach of an "arrangement" and a conspiracy to injure against a group of defendants that included the company's former and current minority directors and companies said to be controlled by them, one firm of solicitors having been sued as a firm. By the application in question the plaintiffs sought discovery of thirty-five categories of documents from certain of the defendants, contending that the documents were needed to substantiate their claims. The court's task was to determine whether the requested documents were relevant and necessary either for disposing fairly of the cause or matter or for saving costs, as required by Order 24 rules 8 and 13, which impose a threshold of relevance and necessity and guard against oppressive or fishing requests. Examining the categories sought against the pleaded issues, the court found that the requested documents were irrelevant and/or unnecessary for resolving the core matters in dispute at that stage of the proceedings, and that the application satisfied neither the relevance nor the necessity requirement. It accordingly dismissed the discovery application, ordering the plaintiffs to pay costs of RM5,000 to the first, third and sixth defendants and RM3,000 to the second defendant. The plaintiffs appealed to the Court of Appeal. The judgment is a useful illustration of the relevance-and-necessity threshold that governs an application for discovery under Order 24 of the Rules of Court 2012, and of the court's control over discovery to prevent oppressive or unnecessary requests. The court underlined that discovery is not an occasion for a party to trawl through an opponent's documents in the hope of building a case, and that Order 24 confines production to what is genuinely required to resolve the pleaded issues fairly or to save costs. Because the categories sought went beyond that, the application was refused, leaving the plaintiffs to prove their claims of breach of fiduciary duty and conspiracy on the evidence properly available to them.