Justin Wee

On the court record

The firm's record illustrates the leave requirements for a statutory derivative action under sections 345 to 350 of the Companies Act 2016, including the good-faith and best-interest thresholds, and the protection of employees whose employment is transferred without their consent.

Justin Wee appears in the corpus as counsel in corporate, civil-procedure and employment litigation, argued in the High Court (Mahkamah Tinggi) in both English and Bahasa Malaysia.

One matter concerned a statutory derivative action. Acting for the plaintiff in litigation involving Samudra Luas Sdn Bhd and a proposed intervener, the firm appeared on an application for leave to commence proceedings on the company's behalf under the Companies Act 2016, where the court examined the plaintiff's status as a complainant, including whether a former director qualified, compliance with the notice requirement under section 348(2), and the two-fold threshold of good faith and the prima facie best interest of the company under sections 345, 347, 348 and 350, ultimately granting leave.

The firm also appeared in a discovery dispute, argued in Malay, acting where a party sought the disclosure of documents against the plaintiff under Order 24 of the Rules of Court 2012, the court considering the relevance and necessity of the documents, whether they were in the possession, custody or control of the party, whether the application was made late, and whether it amounted to a fishing expedition.

In employment work the firm acted for the defendant in a claim by employees whose employment had been transferred from one company to another in connection with a lease arrangement, where the court found that the transfer had occurred without the employees' knowledge or consent, and that they had been induced to accept an offer of employment from the transferee on a purportedly continuous basis without being told of the migration. The firm's record is a corporate-and-employment litigation practice engaging the derivative action, the discovery process and the protection of employees on a transfer of undertaking. The recurrence of questions about who may act and what may be compelled, whether a former director may sue on the company's behalf, whether documents must be disclosed, and whether an employee's contract may be moved between entities without consent, marks the firm as counsel concerned with the allocation of rights and obligations at the boundaries of the corporate form, where the interests of the company, its members and its workforce do not always align.