LUA WEI HUN v AIA BHD.

Case Significance

Instructive on the calibrated grant of discovery in an agent's wrongful-termination claim, the high threshold for striking out an extravagantly framed but arguable claim, and the consolidation and transfer of related suits against a common defendant.

This High Court decision at Johor Bahru concerns a set of interlocutory applications in a suit by a former insurance agent against his principal insurer, AIA Bhd, and was treated as the lead case for three related suits by different agents against the same insurer, the decision in it applying equally to and binding the other two. The plaintiffs had been insurance agents entitled to allowances, commissions and incentives under an Agency Compensation Handbook, and their agency contracts had been terminated on allegations of misconduct, giving rise to claims for wrongful termination and blacklisting. In each suit three mirror applications were filed: the plaintiff's application for discovery of documents to prove wrongful termination and blacklisting, the defendant's application to strike out large portions of the claim as frivolous and exaggerated, and the defendant's application to consolidate the Johor Bahru suit and transfer it to Kuala Lumpur to be heard with a related case. The court, per Dr Noradura binti Hamzah JC, allowed the plaintiff's discovery application in part, confined to defined categories of documents relevant to the dispute, namely the Agency Compensation Handbook and relevant circulars, the plaintiff's commission and sales records, the list of policies in the plaintiff's portfolio, the investigation and termination records save for privileged documents, and correspondence relating to the plaintiff's referral to the industry association's referred-agent listing, dismissing the application in all other respects. It dismissed the defendant's strike-out application, holding that the plaintiffs' claims, however extravagant in the damages sought, disclosed triable issues that had to be determined at trial. It allowed the defendant's consolidation and transfer application, ordering the suit transferred to the Commercial Division of the Kuala Lumpur High Court and consolidated with a related suit there for case management and trial together, with the costs of all three applications to be in the cause. The judgment is instructive on the calibrated grant of discovery, the high threshold for striking out an extravagantly framed but arguable claim, and the consolidation and transfer of related suits.