1. ) Ong Ah Poh 2. ) Goh Choon Seang 3. ) Goh Kim Heong v 1. ) Chan Eng Leong 2. ) Chong Bee Choo

Case Significance

Confirms that the deliberate breach of an injunction is itself contempt, without any need to show separate interference with the administration of justice, upholding the committal of those who defied a preserving order.

This Court of Appeal decision at Putrajaya is one of two appeals, heard together, arising from committal for contempt in a dispute over the control of a tobacco-manufacturing company. The High Court had found several appellants guilty of contempt for breaching an injunction that prohibited interference with the management and affairs of the company, their impugned conduct including issuing termination letters and convening an extraordinary general meeting, which the courts regarded as steps taken to pre-empt the resolution of the underlying suit. This appeal was the contemnors’ challenge to their conviction for contempt. The Court of Appeal reaffirmed the settled principle that the deliberate disobedience of a court order is itself a contempt, and that it is not necessary to prove that the disobedience additionally interfered with the administration of justice; the breach of the order suffices. Examining the findings below, the Court was satisfied that the appellants had knowingly acted in defiance of the injunction, and it found no appealable error in the Judicial Commissioner’s conclusion that they were in contempt. It therefore declined to disturb the convictions, treating the issuing of termination letters and the convening of an extraordinary general meeting as concrete acts of interference with the very management and affairs the injunction was designed to preserve, taken while the substantive suit over control of the company was still pending. The appeal against conviction was accordingly dismissed, with the High Court’s decision affirmed and costs of RM25,000 ordered. The judgment is a clear statement that breach of an injunction constitutes contempt without any further requirement to show prejudice to the administration of justice, and it illustrates how attempts to alter the position of a company in defiance of a preserving injunction — through corporate steps such as terminations and an extraordinary general meeting — will be treated as punishable contempt while the substantive dispute remains to be resolved.