C.S. Tan Seah & Partners

On the court record

C.S. Tan Seah & Partners is a Malaysian firm whose reported matters reach the High Court (Mahkamah Tinggi), the Court of Appeal (Mahkamah Rayuan) and the Federal Court (Mahkamah Persekutuan), with a strong emphasis on arbitration and commercial litigation. A recurring theme is the challenge to and defence of arbitral awards. The firm has argued applications to set aside a final arbitral award under sections 37 and 42 of the Arbitration Act 2005 on grounds including breach of natural justice and res judicata, with the court reiterating that a setting-aside application enquires into the arbitrator's decision-making process rather than the merits. That dispute reached the Federal Court on a related judicial-review question concerning the extent of the immunity enjoyed by the Asian International Arbitration Centre as an international organisation under the International Organizations (Privileges and Immunities) framework.

The firm's wider commercial work includes a summary-judgment appeal testing whether an investment or property-management agreement with a fixed return was in truth a sham disguising an illegal moneylending transaction under the Moneylenders Act 1951, and a dispute over an agreement to jointly develop land and build semi-detached factories, where each party alleged breach by the other and the court examined the evidence of who had failed to perform. It has also appeared in appeals from the Sessions Court over entitlement to interest, damages and solicitor-client costs. In the arbitration-immunity litigation the Federal Court examined the extent of the legal immunity conferred on the arbitration centre as an international organisation, and whether that immunity shielded it from a judicial-review challenge, a question of consequence for the conduct of international arbitration seated in Malaysia. The reported profile is that of a commercial and arbitration-litigation practice, engaged both with the technical grounds on which awards stand or fall and with the underlying contract, moneylending and development disputes that generate them, and willing to pursue those questions to the apex court.