Chris Koh & Chew

On the court record

The firm's record illustrates the statutory secrecy limits on discovery under the Securities Industry (Central Depositories) Act 1991 and the principles governing the setting aside of a judgment in default of appearance.

Chris Koh & Chew appears in the corpus as counsel in banking, securities and civil-procedure litigation, argued in the High Court (Mahkamah Tinggi) and the Court of Appeal (Mahkamah Rayuan) in both English and Bahasa Malaysia.

One matter concerned discovery against a securities firm. Acting for the respondent, TA Securities Holdings Berhad, the firm appeared where the court considered a discovery application under Order 24 rules 3 and 7 of the Rules of Court 2012, whether the application was meritorious or a fishing expedition, and whether discovery was prohibited by statutory secrecy provisions, in particular section 43 of the Securities Industry (Central Depositories) Act 1991, together with a bank's duty of care to non-customers under the Financial Services Act 2013.

The firm also appeared in enforcement and default-judgment litigation. In a related matter involving the same securities firm, argued in Malay, it acted for the respondent in an appeal against a Sessions Court decision refusing to set aside a judgment in default of appearance, where the appellant had failed to enter an appearance within time and only later became aware of the judgment, the court considering whether the writ had been served regularly under the contract terms and Order 10 rule 3 of the Rules of Court 2012, and whether a bona fide defence raising a triable issue had been shown. In a further matter it acted for the defendant on an application to set aside a judgment in default made after a delay of thirteen months, where the court weighed the explanation for the delay, whether the judgment had been obtained regularly and whether the defendants had a meritorious defence.

The firm's record is a banking-and-procedure litigation practice engaging statutory secrecy, the duty of care to non-customers, and the setting aside of default judgments. Much of the firm's advocacy is directed at the procedural and evidential gateways that surround a financial claim, whether a party may compel the disclosure of protected records, whether a judgment entered in a party's absence should be reopened, and whether service was effected in accordance with the contract and the rules, questions on which the practical fate of a banking dispute frequently depends before its substance is ever reached.