Bahar & Co.

On the court record

The firm's record illustrates the interlocutory complexity of a soured development joint venture, from the disqualification of solicitors to judgment in default, and the principles governing the joinder of criminal trials.

Bahar & Co. appears in the corpus as counsel in land litigation and criminal procedure, argued in the High Court (Mahkamah Tinggi), largely in Bahasa Malaysia.

The firm's principal reported work is a substantial land and joint-venture dispute involving Tokoh Agro Sdn Bhd, in which it acted as counsel for a third party across connected proceedings. The dispute, argued in Malay, concerned undang-undang tanah (land law) and pencerobohan tanah (trespass to land), and turned on a perjanjian usahasama (joint-venture agreement) together with a Business Exit Agreement and a Consultancy Agreement, and on the rights of management, operation and development under those instruments. The proceedings raised allegations of salah nyata dan penipuan (misrepresentation and fraud) and konflik kepentingan (conflict of interest), an application for the lucut kelayakan peguamcara (disqualification of solicitors), the existing jurisdiction of the court, an extension of time to file a defence, a penghakiman ingkar pembelaan (judgment in default of defence), and applications to amend the defence and counterclaim. The matter is a good illustration of how a soured development joint venture generates a web of interlocutory disputes over pleadings, parties and the conduct of the opposing solicitors, alongside the substantive claims to the land itself.

The firm also appeared in criminal procedure, acting on an application by the Deputy Public Prosecutor (Timbalan Pendakwa Raya) for several criminal cases to be tried together, a joinder that turns on whether the charges arise from the same transaction or series of acts so as to make a joint trial convenient and fair to the accused. Taken together, the firm's matters engage both the substantive and interlocutory dimensions of a complex land-development dispute and the procedural law governing the joinder of criminal trials, and reflect a chambers conducting its work fluently in Bahasa Malaysia. The land dispute in particular shows how a single development agreement, once it breaks down, can spawn a long sequence of applications, over the adequacy of pleadings, the time for filing a defence, the conduct of the opposing solicitors and the amendment of a counterclaim, each of which must be resolved before the underlying entitlement to the land can be tried, so that much of the firm's work is directed at these preliminary skirmishes rather than at the ultimate merits.