Rafaei & Co.

On the court record

Rafaei & Co. is a Malaysian firm whose reported matters before the Court of Appeal (Mahkamah Rayuan) and the High Court (Mahkamah Tinggi) span contract and limitation, land, and criminal appellate work. In the contract field the firm has litigated a limitation dispute over a promised incentive payment, where the plaintiff had been informed of the board's approval in 2010, and the question was when the cause of action accrued, whether on the failure to pay after the obligation arose, and whether the later discovery of board minutes refusing payment extended the limitation period under section 6 of the Limitation Act 1953. In the land field it has appeared in an application to remove a private caveat under section 327 of the National Land Code, where the caveator had to show a caveatable interest in the land.

On the criminal side the firm has appeared, for the respondent, in a corruption appeal engaging section 17(a) of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission Act 2009, on the offence of an agent giving or receiving gratification, and section 19, under which the giver or receiver of a bribe commits an offence regardless of whether the object of the gratification was carried out or was unconnected with the matter in hand. That work engages the elements of the principal corruption offences and the treatment of the recipient's and giver's respective liability.

In the caveat matter the firm pressed the removal of a private caveat under section 327 of the National Land Code, on the footing that a caveator must demonstrate a subsisting caveatable interest in the land before the caveat may stand. The reported profile is that of a litigation practice combining commercial and contract work, in which the accrual of a cause of action and the reach of the limitation period recur, with land-caveat disputes and anti-corruption appellate work. The firm's caseload reflects attention both to the precise moment a contractual claim arises and can be defeated by limitation, and to the statutory ingredients of the corruption offences on which a conviction depends.