Cheah Teh & Su

On the court record

Cheah Teh & Su appears in the reported judgments as a commercial and public-law litigation practice with a pronounced appellate character, its matters divided between the High Court (Mahkamah Tinggi) and the Court of Appeal (Mahkamah Rayuan), and reaching the Federal Court (Mahkamah Persekutuan), with the firm acting most often as respondent. Civil procedure is the most frequent theme in its corpus, alongside banking and finance and contract disputes. A significant public-law matter in its record is a judicial review concerning prosecutorial discretion and the leave threshold, engaging Article 145(3) of the Federal Constitution and section 254 of the Criminal Procedure Code, in proceedings brought by a professional body against the Attorney General. The firm also appears in land matters, including an appeal against a State Authority's decision on the grant of title under section 418 of the National Land Code and the related application for leave to bring judicial review (semakan kehakiman), and in company-law disputes such as the automatic vacation of a director's office and the removal of nominee directors. Contempt of court and the Riddick implied-undertaking principle recur, as do questions of res judicata and whether the broad grounds of a decision constitute its full grounds of judgment. Its commercial work includes summary judgment founded on a Certificate of Indebtedness and disputes over the shares of a joint-venture company. The counterparties in the corpus include aviation, marine and holding companies such as Nautilus Tug & Towage Sdn Bhd and Zelan Holdings (M) Sdn Bhd. Acting predominantly as respondent, and frequently on appeal, the firm presents as a litigator whose corpus joins substantial commercial disputes to constitutional and administrative questions of real weight, argued at the higher levels of the court system. Its banking and finance disputes and its handling of a summary judgment founded on a Certificate of Indebtedness show a practice equally comfortable with the recovery side of commercial lending, while its arguments on res judicata and on whether the broad grounds of a decision amount to its full grounds of judgment reflect the appellate discipline that runs through its work. The recurrence of respondent appearances suggests the firm is often defending favourable outcomes obtained below, carrying them safely through appeal.