G Naidu & Partners

On the court record

The firm's record illustrates how section 96 of the Road Transport Act 1987 governs the enforcement of accident judgments against insurers and takaful operators, including the effect of declaratory orders and the problem of cloned vehicles.

G Naidu & Partners appears in the corpus as counsel in motor-insurance and road-accident litigation, together with winding-up work, argued in the High Court (Mahkamah Tinggi) and the Court of Appeal (Mahkamah Rayuan) in both English and Bahasa Malaysia.

A recurring theme is the enforcement of judgments against motor insurers under the Road Transport Act 1987. Acting for the respondent in an appeal involving Allianz General Insurance Company (Malaysia) Berhad, the firm appeared where the court considered whether the respondents could execute a judgment without first obtaining a judgment against the insurer through a recovery action, whether a declaratory order was valid and complied with sub-section 96(3) of the Road Transport Act 1987, and whether the respondents had to set aside or impeach that declaratory order by a collateral action.

In a related matter involving Zurich General Takaful Malaysia Berhad, the firm acted for appellants in a section 96 application concerning a cloned car, where the original vehicle had been written off years earlier but the records of the road transport department had not been updated and insurance had continued to be renewed and premiums collected, raising whether the insurer remained liable.

The firm also appeared in road-accident appeals more generally, including a rayuan sivil (civil appeal) involving MSIG Insurance (Malaysia) Berhad where a Sessions Court had dismissed a plaintiff's claim and allowed the defendant's counterclaim, and in a winding-up petition under the Companies Act 2016. The firm's record is a focused insurance-litigation practice, concentrated on the statutory rights and defences that arise between accident victims, insurers and takaful operators under the Road Transport Act 1987, and comfortable with proceedings in either language. The firm's matters repeatedly turn on the procedural architecture by which a third party translates a judgment against a negligent motorist into recovery from the insurer, and on the defences an insurer or takaful operator may raise, from a declaratory order under section 96(3) to the anomalies thrown up by a cloned or written-off vehicle whose registration records were never corrected.