Raja Riza & Associates

On the court record

Raja Riza & Associates is a Malaysian firm whose reported matters before the High Court (Mahkamah Tinggi) and the Court of Appeal (Mahkamah Rayuan) are concentrated in defamation, company law and public-interest civil litigation. Defamation features prominently. The firm has appeared in claims founded on the publication of newspaper and online articles, including an appeal on whether impugned words were defamatory or capable of bearing the pleaded defamatory imputations, whether the ordinary reasonable reader would understand them in a defamatory sense in the circumstances of publication, and the availability of the defence of justification, and a matter in which a businessman was called a conman but the particulars of his reach and influence were not given, and a rolled-up award of damages was made.

In the corporate field the firm has litigated the duties of directors, engaging the business-judgment rule under section 214 of the Companies Act 2016 and what constitutes the best interest of the company, together with the availability of relief from liability under section 581. Its wider caseload includes an originating summons brought on behalf of a traders' association whose members had applied for a bazaar site, challenging the award of the organising approval to another party.

In one defamation appeal the firm tested whether a newspaper's coverage of an environmental complaint bore the defamatory meaning pleaded, and whether the defence of justification could be sustained on the facts proved at trial. The reported profile is that of a litigation practice with distinct strength in defamation, where the meaning of words, the reasonable reader and the defences of justification and fair comment recur, complemented by company-law work on directors' duties and the business-judgment rule and by public-interest disputes over the allocation of licences and approvals. The firm's caseload reflects work protecting and testing reputations in the media age, and adjudicating the responsibilities of those who direct companies and the decisions of bodies that grant commercial opportunities.