ENDLESS CORPORATE SDN. BHD. v 1. ) GS REALTY SDN. BHD. 2. ) TETUAN PATRICK YEOH & COMPANY 3. ) YEOH ENG KONG

Case Significance

Illustrates the court's constitutional and statutory power to punish contempt, the procedure of committal including applications to set aside leave, and the treatment of a member of the Bar who disobeys a court order.

This High Court decision at Kuala Lumpur concerns cross-applications for committal for contempt of court, and the sentence imposed on a contemnor who was an advocate and solicitor. The plaintiff, having obtained leave, applied to commit the third defendant, and the first defendant likewise applied to commit the second and third defendants, for breach of an earlier conditional suspension order of the court; the third defendant practised as the sole proprietor of the second defendant firm. In response, the second and third defendants applied to set aside the ex parte orders that had granted leave to bring the committal proceedings. The court grounded its jurisdiction to punish contempt in Article 126 of the Federal Constitution, which confers on the Federal Court, the Court of Appeal and the High Court the power to punish any contempt of itself, and in section 13 of the Courts of Judicature Act 1964. Having considered the competing applications, the court dismissed the applications to set aside the leave orders and allowed the committal applications with costs, finding the contempt established. In fixing sentence, the court weighed the fact that the third defendant was an advocate and solicitor, referring to Court of Appeal authority in Lee Lim Huat treating a short custodial term as lenient where the contemnor is a member of the Bar, and imposed on the third defendant ten days' imprisonment together with a fine of RM100,000.00, a sentence the court considered justified notwithstanding the contemnor's professional standing. After sentencing, counsel for the second and third defendants made an oral application under Order 52 rule 7 of the Rules of Court 2012 to stay the imprisonment order, which the court allowed subject to compliance with the terms it had set. The judgment is a useful illustration of the court's constitutional and statutory power to punish contempt, the discipline of committal procedure including applications to set aside leave, and the treatment of a member of the Bar who disobeys a court order.