David Gurupatham & Koay

On the court record

David Gurupatham & Koay is a Malaysian firm whose reported matters before the High Court (Mahkamah Tinggi) and the Court of Appeal (Mahkamah Rayuan) range across company, contract, tort, land and public law. In the corporate field it has litigated a claim against a managing director for breach of his duties and obligations under a consent judgment, and appellate disputes over whether an oral agreement made gratuitously and without consideration is enforceable and whether overpayments made by mistake are recoverable where cogently proven, with the court noting that appellate intervention is justified where a trial judge's decision is tainted by material misdirection. Its tort work includes a negligence appeal (tort kecuaian) concerning the loss suffered by the purchaser of an imported vehicle, engaging the bona fide purchaser principle and the obligation of a party who had lent an Approved Permit to another.

The firm has also appeared in public-law and specialist litigation. It has argued a judicial review seeking certiorari to quash a decision of the Competition Appeal Tribunal, raising whether the applicants had entered into an anti-competitive agreement in breach of section 4 of the Competition Act, and it has litigated a defamation claim founded on slander, addressing the key elements of the cause of action, publication of defamatory words to a specific group and striking out under Order 18 Rule 19 of the Rules of Court 2012. In the land field it has appeared in a dispute over wakaf land engaging res judicata and abuse of process under Terengganu Islamic religious enactments governing wakaf land. It has also acted in an application to convert an originating summons to a writ, which the court dismissed with no order as to costs after weighing whether the issues required the fuller procedure of a trial, and in a claim founded on a director's alleged breach of his duties under a consent judgment. The reported profile is that of a broad commercial and civil-litigation practice, comfortable with corporate duties, contract and restitution, competition and defamation, and land.