Akberdin & Co

On the court record

Akberdin & Co is a Malaysian firm with a broad reported litigation practice before the High Court (Mahkamah Tinggi) and the Court of Appeal (Mahkamah Rayuan), spanning medical negligence, civil procedure, land and conveyancing, trusts and criminal defence. In the tort field it has appeared in a medical-negligence claim arising where a baby was born with cerebral palsy said to result from hypoxia during childbirth, a case that examined the duty of care of a medical facility and the person in charge, and the court's power to refer to medical publications to ascertain the applicable standard of care. Its civil-procedure work includes summary-judgment applications under Order 14 of the Rules of Court 2012, testing whether a defence raises a bona fide triable issue or is merely a shadowy or pure point of law, and applications to strike out pleadings under Order 18 Rule 19. In the land field it has litigated the vendor's entitlement to a balance purchase price and questions of trust, including whether investments and assets were held on trust.

The firm has also appeared in a high-profile corruption appeal concerning solar-project procurement, argued under the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission Act 2009, where issues of recusal, the integrity of documents and the timing of a draft judgment were raised, and it has defended drug-trafficking charges involving heroin and monoacetylmorphines where possession turned on access to a room shared with others. It has further handled probate and estate disputes founded on a consent judgment (Penghakiman Persetujuan) intended to settle all disputes over a deceased's estate. In related interlocutory litigation the firm has pressed and resisted applications under Order 18 Rule 19 of the Rules of Court 2012 to strike out specific paragraphs of a pleading and to dismiss a claim for want of jurisdiction, and it has argued that a party's admission in its pleadings may not be contradicted at trial when the existence of a trust over investments is in dispute. The reported profile is that of a versatile practice equally at home with clinical-negligence litigation, commercial procedure and criminal defence.