Haniff Khatri

On the court record

The firm's record illustrates the entrustment requirement and the rebuttal of the presumption of dishonesty under section 409B of the Penal Code in a criminal-breach-of-trust case, and the audi alteram partem rule governing the setting aside of a child protection order.

Haniff Khatri appears in the corpus as counsel in banking, criminal and family-protection litigation, argued in the High Court (Mahkamah Tinggi) and the Court of Appeal (Mahkamah Rayuan).

In banking work the firm acted for the defendant in a summary-judgment application under Order 14 of the Rules of Court 2012 involving Bank Pembangunan Malaysia Berhad, arising from a ship-financing facility secured by a statutory vessel mortgage and engaging admiralty in rem proceedings and maritime priorities. The court examined a certificate of indebtedness with a conclusive-evidence clause, the manifest-error and fraud exceptions, guarantor liability including whether a guarantee was irrevocable and co-extensive, the plea of non est factum, and whether a variation without consent discharged the guarantor.

On the criminal side the firm acted for an appellant before the Court of Appeal in an appeal against a conviction for criminal breach of trust under sections 405, 408 and 409B of the Penal Code, where the presumption of dishonesty under section 409B was in issue. The appeal succeeded on the footing that the element of entrustment, or dominion over the property, had not been proven, the money received not being held on trust for the firm, so that the ingredient of a trust was absent and the presumption of dishonesty was rebutted.

The firm also appeared, acting for the respondent, in a matter concerning an interim protection order involving a child that had been set aside ex parte without hearing the father of the child or the Welfare Department, where the court held that the setting-aside had breached the audi alteram partem rule, allowed the appeal, reinstated the order and directed a fresh hearing. The firm's record is a broad litigation practice engaging banking recovery, criminal breach of trust and the procedural fairness of protective orders. A recurring theme across these otherwise disparate matters is the insistence that a party seeking a drastic remedy, whether a bank pursuing summary judgment on a guarantee, a prosecution invoking the presumption of dishonesty, or a party setting aside a protection order, must first satisfy the strict preconditions the law imposes, so that the firm's advocacy is frequently directed at whether an essential ingredient or an essential procedural safeguard has in truth been made out.