Presgrave & Matthews

On the court record

Presgrave & Matthews appears in the reported judgments as a commercial and property-litigation practice with a strong appellate element, dividing its work between the High Court (Mahkamah Tinggi) and the Court of Appeal (Mahkamah Rayuan) and appearing most often as respondent. A recurring category is housing and development litigation over the late delivery of vacant possession of property, in which the Court of Appeal has upheld findings made at first instance. The firm also litigates breaches of contractual obligation, duty of care and fiduciary duty — for example against a company's former chief financial officer — and property matters involving the allegedly fraudulent transfer of land from a rightful owner, including proceedings connected to a trust corporation. A distinct company-law strand concerns security for costs under section 580A of the Companies Act 2016, which allows a court to order a company plaintiff to provide security where there is reason to believe it will be unable to pay a successful defendant's costs. Its civil-procedure and contract work includes disputes over a consent order relating to a share-sale agreement and the entitlement it confers. The counterparties in the corpus include Amanah Raya Berhad, technology and solutions companies such as LITS Solutions Sdn Bhd, and trading and commerce companies. Acting for respondents, defendants, appellants and plaintiffs across these matters, the firm presents as a litigator whose corpus centres on property and development disputes, corporate and fiduciary claims, and the security-for-costs and consent-order questions that arise in company litigation, with a notable share of its work resolved at the appellate level. The security-for-costs matters are a characteristic strand, since section 580A gives a defendant facing a company plaintiff a means of protecting itself against the risk of an unrecoverable costs order, and the court must weigh that protection against the plaintiff's right of access to justice. The fraudulent-transfer and fiduciary-breach claims, by contrast, engage the court in unwinding wrongful dealings with land and corporate assets and restoring them to their rightful owner.