1. ) GM AERO SUPPORT SDN. BHD. 2. ) Khoh Siew Kim v 1. ) GENTING HIGHLANDS BERHAD 2. ) GENTING MALAYSIA BERHAD 3. ) FIRST WORLD HOTELS & RESORTS SDN. BHD.

Case Significance

A Court of Appeal decision on the Riddick implied undertaking, holding that documents read in open court could be used to inform related Temerloh proceedings without contempt, and rejecting the respondents' committal route.

This Court of Appeal decision, one of two linked appeals, concerns the implied undertaking that governs the use of documents obtained under compulsion in litigation — the Riddick principle. In earlier proceedings the appellants had obtained documents through the court's compulsory processes, and the respondents, a group of companies including Genting Highlands Berhad and Genting Malaysia Berhad, applied for leave to commence committal proceedings against the appellants for contempt, alleging that the appellants had breached the implied undertaking by deploying those documents in related proceedings at Temerloh. The appeals arose from the grant of that leave.

The central question was whether the implied undertaking not to use compulsorily disclosed documents for a collateral purpose survives once the documents have been filed, marked and read in open court. Under the principle discussed in Harman v Secretary of State and its Malaysian application, information that has entered the public domain through being read or referred to in open proceedings is generally no longer protected by the undertaking, and public documents stand outside it. The Court examined whether the appellants' use of the documents (identified as B106 and B108) in the Temerloh matters was for an ulterior, collateral or improper purpose, or whether it was a legitimate deployment to apprise the Temerloh court of facts relevant to the subdivision and alienation of certain land titles so that it could reach an accurate decision.

The Court concluded that the documents had not been used for any improper or alien purpose but to place relevant facts before the court, and it disagreed with the respondents' resort to contempt proceedings. It dismissed the respondents' applications to strike out the appeal and to adduce further evidence, with costs, and awarded lump-sum costs of RM50,000 in this appeal. The judgment is a useful illustration of the scope of the Riddick undertaking, and of the principle that documents read in open court may be used to inform related proceedings without breaching it.