G.K Sritharan

On the court record

The firm's record shows how the Malaysian courts approach professional-negligence claims against solicitors and the strike-out threshold under Order 18 rule 19, drawing on the landmark Bandar Builder authority, in litigation conducted across both languages.

G.K Sritharan appears in the corpus as counsel in civil litigation spanning professional negligence, contract and land, much of it argued in Bahasa Malaysia before the High Court (Mahkamah Tinggi).

One matter concerned an allegation of professional negligence against a law firm. Acting for the plaintiffs, the firm appeared where the court addressed, in the judgment's terms, kecuaian profesional (professional negligence) and the hubungan peguam-anak guam (solicitor-client relationship), including a retainer, the kewajipan fidusiari (fiduciary duty), reliance by a third party or beneficiary, and whether such a claim brought by originating summons and supported by affidavit evidence was suitable for disposal without a full trial given material factual disputes.

The firm also appeared in strike-out litigation, acting for the plaintiff where the court applied Order 18 rule 19(1)(a) of the Rules of Court 2012 and the landmark authority Bandar Builder Sdn Bhd v United Malayan Banking Corporation Bhd, together with the plain-and-obvious test, and considered questions of privity of contract where an option to purchase had been signed by only one of two co-owners, so that there was tiada kontrak yang mengikat (no binding contract) against the non-signatory, and the impossibility of compelling a co-owner to transfer an undivided share.

A further matter, involving Microtronics Technology Sdn Bhd and a foreign supplier, concerned a sale-of-goods claim for the price of integrated circuits, met by allegations that the goods were the defendant's own stolen property resold by the plaintiff, raising fraudulent misrepresentation, conspiracy to defraud and the appellate plainly-wrong test. The firm's record is a general civil-litigation practice engaging professional-liability, contract and property questions, argued fluently in both Malay and English. What links these otherwise disparate matters is a recurring emphasis on threshold disposal, whether a claim can be struck out as plainly unsustainable, whether an originating summons is the right vehicle where facts are disputed, and whether a contract binds a party who never signed it, so that much of the firm's advocacy is directed at whether a dispute should reach trial at all rather than at the merits once it does.