P. Paramjothy & Co.

On the court record

The firm's record illustrates how the courts approach the formation and termination of contracts through email and messaging platforms, particularly the evidential questions of ostensible authority and the intention to create legal relations.

P. Paramjothy & Co. appears in the corpus as counsel in contract, defamation and commercial litigation, argued in the High Court (Mahkamah Tinggi) and the Court of Appeal (Mahkamah Rayuan).

One matter concerned the amendment of pleadings in a defamation action. Acting for the defendant, the firm appeared where a post-trial application to amend was in issue, the court weighing whether it was a bona fide application or a tactical manoeuvre, the translation requirements, the prejudice to the other side and the overriding interest of justice against the risk of an abuse of process.

The firm also appeared in contractual disputes turning on how agreements are formed and proved. In one matter, acting for the defendant, it appeared where the court considered whether an exchange of emails constituted a binding contract, examining offer and acceptance, certainty of terms, the intention to create legal relations and consideration, together with a director's personal and joint liability and the burden of proof under sections 101 and 104 of the Evidence Act 1950 in a claim for unpaid consultancy fees.

A further matter, involving Tect Huat Development Sdn Bhd, concerned the alleged unlawful termination of a joint-venture agreement and a supplementary agreement, where the central issue was whether one co-owner had ostensible authority to sign the supplementary agreement, which had been signed and returned by WhatsApp, and the significance of that co-owner having encashed a cheque described as a commission. The firm appeared on both sides of the connected appeals arising from that dispute. The firm's record is a commercial-litigation practice attentive to the modern reality that contracts are increasingly made and terminated through email and messaging platforms, and to the evidential questions of authority and intention that such informal dealings raise. That the same disputes require the court to reconstruct the parties' bargain from correspondence, cheques and digital messages rather than from a single formal instrument reflects a practice in which the burden of proof and the credibility of the documentary trail are decisive, and in which a party's conduct after the alleged agreement often speaks louder than the words exchanged.