Rabinder Budiman & Associates

On the court record

Rabinder Budiman & Associates is a Malaysian firm whose reported matters before the High Court (Mahkamah Tinggi) and the Court of Appeal (Mahkamah Rayuan) are concentrated in commercial civil procedure, tort, trusts and contract. Striking-out applications recur across the caseload. The firm has argued applications under Order 18 Rule 19 of the Rules of Court 2012 to strike out claims as disclosing no reasonable cause of action or as obviously unsustainable, including a claim against a bank founded on the banker-and-customer duty of care, and a claim alleging that the winding up of a company amounted to fraudulent trading and a conspiracy to injure, where no plea on the availability of assets had been made.

The firm's contract, tort and trust work is varied. It has appeared in an appeal from the Magistrate's Court over the breach of an oral tenancy agreement, claims for renovation and repair costs, the refund of deposits and an overpaid water bill against a counterclaim for rental, applying the plainly-wrong standard of appellate review, and in an appeal concerning a trust over properties, where the High Court's finding that a trust existed was affirmed on the admissibility and enforceability of the trust. It has also litigated a fortuna injunction to restrain the presentation of a winding-up petition following a statutory demand under the Companies Act 2016, testing whether the demand was an abuse of process where the debt was disputed and civil proceedings were pending.

The reported profile is that of a commercial-litigation practice engaged with the striking out of unsustainable claims, the appellate review of trial findings in contract and tort, the proof and enforcement of trusts, and the fortuna injunction that restrains an abusive winding-up demand, with a consistent focus on whether a pleaded claim can survive scrutiny and on the proper limits of the winding-up jurisdiction.