Pierre Chuah & Associates

On the court record

A commercial-litigation practice reaching the Federal Court, engaging statutory illegality under the Insurance Act 1996, arbitration stays under the Arbitration Act 2005, and the interlocutory management of large disputes.

Pierre Chuah & Associates is recorded in the corpus in high-value commercial litigation, including work at the apex of the court structure. In a Federal Court appeal the firm acted for the appellant in a dispute over agreements affected by the failure to obtain the consent of the Minister of Finance under section 67 of the Insurance Act 1996. The appeal raised difficult questions of statutory illegality: whether the relevant legislation was that in force at the time the agreements were entered into or at the time of performance, given the repeal of the 1996 Act by the Financial Services Act 2013; whether the agreements were void ab initio or became unenforceable only when the required approval was not obtained; whether an illegality could arise in the course of performance; and the availability of specific performance and of restitution under section 66 of the Contracts Act 1950, drawing the distinction between a contract whose object is illegal and one whose performance involves an illegal act. In a High Court matter the firm acted for the plaintiff in resisting a stay of proceedings pending reference to arbitration, engaging section 10 of the Arbitration Act 2005 and the requirements a defendant must satisfy to obtain a stay, including whether an arbitration clause in one agreement could be treated as incorporated into a related agreement that contained no such clause. A further High Court matter placed the firm on the applicant's side in a permohonan penggantungan pelaksanaan (application to stay execution) connected with judicial review, where the court, after weighing the considerations bearing on such a stay, recorded that the permohonan ditolak (the application was dismissed). The record reflects a practice engaged with statutory illegality, arbitration and the interlocutory management of large commercial and public-law disputes. In the arbitration matter the further question was whether an arbitration clause in one agreement could be treated as incorporated into a related agreement that contained none, a point on which the party asserting incorporation bore the burden.