Benjamin Dawson

On the court record

Benjamin Dawson is a Malaysian firm whose reported matters, argued before the High Court (Mahkamah Tinggi) and the Federal Court (Mahkamah Persekutuan), combine constitutional and public-law work with substantial commercial and corporate litigation. In the constitutional field the firm has appeared in a freedom-of-expression matter engaging Article 10(1)(a) of the Federal Constitution and the permissible restrictions on speech, alongside Articles 4(1) and 4(2), a case that tested the reach of the guarantee of expression against statutory limits. Its corporate work includes litigation over a scheme of arrangement under section 366 of the Companies Act 2016, raising whether a court can set aside an earlier order that had sanctioned a scheme, a question on which the authorities disclose more than one school of thought as to the court's jurisdiction after a sanction order.

The firm has also appeared in an assessment of damages following a Court of Appeal declaration that a novation agreement, a repayment agreement and a guarantee were void and unenforceable as entered into in breach of a collateral arrangement, and in a securities matter concerning insider trading under section 188 of the Capital Markets and Services Act 2007, together with allegations of malicious prosecution and abuse of process. On the procedural side it has litigated a recusal application and questions arising from notes of objection to affidavit evidence and third-party disclosure. Its corporate work has further engaged whether a court retains jurisdiction to alter the substance of a sanctioned scheme of arrangement once the sanction order has been made, and the assessment of damages flowing from agreements declared void, where the quantification of loss and the continuing effect of the void instruments were closely examined. The reported profile is that of a practice that pairs constitutional and public-law advocacy at the apex court with heavyweight commercial, corporate and securities litigation, reflecting a team comfortable moving between rights-based argument and the detailed commercial record.