Jeeva Partnership

On the court record

Jeeva Partnership is a Malaysian firm whose reported matters before the High Court (Mahkamah Tinggi) and the Court of Appeal (Mahkamah Rayuan) are weighted toward commercial and civil-procedure litigation. Amendment of pleadings recurs: the firm has argued applications to amend a defence and counterclaim under Order 20 Rule 5 of the Rules of Court 2012, applying the Yamaha Motor three-limb test and asking whether the proposed amendments would change the character of the suit into one of a different and inconsistent character, and whether an application made late, after trial dates were fixed, was bona fide. Its contract work includes a dispute over a put-and-call option agreement, testing whether a ten-business-day notice requirement in the option clause was mandatory or directory and whether the put option had been validly exercised when notice was served only days before expiry.

The firm has also litigated procedural and limitation questions of some depth. It has appeared in an application concerning the transfer and consolidation of proceedings, invoking the Courts of Judicature Act 1964 and the court's inherent powers, including powers existing before Merdeka Day, to move proceedings between courts, and in an appeal raising whether a claim was time-barred under section 6 of the Limitation Act 1953 and whether the Federal Court's decision in Ang Ming Lee was distinguishable on the facts. Its wider caseload extends to a strata and housing-development matter concerning developer obligations and the management body, and a claim arising from a sale and purchase agreement over leasehold land. Its caseload also reached a sale and purchase agreement over leasehold land held under a state lease, where the parties' obligations and the consequences of default fell to be construed on the documents. The reported profile is that of a commercial-litigation practice with particular command of the interlocutory and limitation questions, amendment, consolidation, notice and time bars, that frequently determine the shape and survival of a civil claim.