A.J. Chowdhury

On the court record

The firm's record shows the overlap between corporate-restructuring tools under the Companies Act 2016, such as schemes of arrangement and receiver appointments, and classical equity in the form of mutual wills and constructive trusts.

A.J. Chowdhury appears in the corpus as counsel in corporate and commercial litigation, together with a notable probate matter, argued in the High Court (Mahkamah Tinggi) and the Court of Appeal (Mahkamah Rayuan).

A recurring theme is the appointment of receivers and managers and the reach of restraining and injunctive relief in company disputes. Acting for plaintiffs in litigation involving Zung Zang Holdings Sdn Bhd and related entities, the firm appeared where the court examined whether a receiver and manager could be appointed ex parte under Order 30 of the Rules of Court 2012, whether the requirement in section 376(1) of the Companies Act 2016 to give notice to the company precluded an ex parte appointment, and how Order 30 interacts with the injunction regime in Order 29, invoking the principle generalia specialibus non derogant.

The firm also acted for the appellant in scheme-of-arrangement litigation concerning Martin Bencher (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd and Sapura Energy Berhad and its subsidiaries, where the issues were whether section 366 of the Companies Act 2016 prohibits consecutive applications for convening orders, the requirements for a restraining order under section 368, whether consecutive restraining-order applications amounted to an abuse of process, and whether filing a proof of debt submits a creditor to the court's jurisdiction.

In a very different matter the firm appeared for the appellant in a probate dispute over mutual wills, where a deceased and his first wife had executed substantially identical wills and the deceased later executed a fresh will after remarrying. The Court of Appeal, by majority, held that the earlier wills were mutual wills and therefore attracted a constructive trust, addressing irrevocability, extrinsic evidence of common intention and testamentary freedom. The firm's record combines corporate restructuring work with succession litigation, moving between the statutory machinery of the Companies Act 2016 and the equitable doctrines that govern how the courts hold parties to earlier promises, whether those promises are made to creditors in a scheme or to a spouse in a pair of mutual wills.