LOW KIM HONG v LOW SHEE KIAN

Case Significance

Holds that a consent judgment recorded on the strength of counsel's apparent and ostensible authority will not be set aside merely because the client later disavows it: absent proof that counsel lacked authority or that real injustice resulted, the client's recourse is against counsel, and the settlement stands.

This High Court decision addresses the validity of a consent judgment recorded in court and the authority of counsel to settle on a client's behalf. The underlying action was a family dispute between a father and his son — natural persons referred to here by their procedural roles — in which the father had sued to invalidate a share transfer and certain powers of attorney he had granted to the son. After a court-assisted mediation, a settlement was recorded on 2 October 2025, but the father later refused to sign the draft consent judgment and claimed he had never approved the terms.

The father was aged and in poor health and was not personally present on the day the settlement was reached; he was represented at the mediation by his other children and by counsel from his solicitors on record. A draft consent judgment, signed by counsel for both parties and by the children who represented the father, was tendered to the court and pronounced as the terms of settlement, with the trial dates vacated. The dispute arose when the father declined to sign, and his former solicitors then applied to discharge themselves. Two applications came before the court: the son's application to declare the consent judgment valid and binding, and the father's application to amend the court minute to record the contrary.

The determinative question was whether the father's counsel had “apparent and ostensible authority” to compromise the suit. The court held that counsel did have both apparent and ostensible authority to settle at the mediation, and that if counsel in fact lacked actual authority or exceeded instructions, that was “not proven” and the client's “recourse is against his counsel”. It found no grave injustice or prejudice such as to justify reopening a matter recorded as settled, particularly as the settlement provided for the father's welfare and an agreed division of assets that all his children had endorsed.

Accordingly the court allowed the son's application to uphold the consent judgment, with costs of RM10,000, and dismissed the father's application to amend the minute, with costs of RM5,000. The judgment is a clear statement that a consent judgment recorded on the strength of counsel's ostensible authority will not be set aside merely because the client later disavows it, absent proof of lack of authority or real injustice.