Ram Yogan Sivam

On the court record

The firm's record illustrates how the courts treat sale-and-purchase agreements executed by a company facing winding-up, including the requirement of a validation order, and the strict proof required to establish forgery and documentary evidence.

Ram Yogan Sivam appears in the corpus as counsel in company-law and civil-procedure litigation, argued in the High Court (Mahkamah Tinggi) and reaching the Federal Court (Mahkamah Persekutuan).

A cluster of the firm's matters concerns the validity of sale-and-purchase agreements executed by a company in the shadow of winding-up. Acting for plaintiffs in connected proceedings involving Mujur Zaman Sdn Bhd and MZ Development Sdn Bhd, the firm appeared where the court considered, by way of questions of law under Order 14A of the Rules of Court 2012, whether a sale-and-purchase agreement was unlawful for contravening sections 223 and 293 of the Companies Act 1965, whether it was frustrated under section 57(2) of the Contracts Act 1950, and whether the claim was time-barred. In a related matter the court examined whether agreements executed after the presentation of a winding-up petition were void ab initio in the absence of a validation order, together with the strike-out threshold under Order 18 rule 19, the six-year limitation period under section 6(1)(a) of the Limitation Act 1953, and whether alleged fraud was sufficiently pleaded to invoke section 29.

The firm also appeared at the apex level. Acting for the respondent in a Federal Court matter involving Live Capital Sdn Bhd and Pioneer Conglomerate Sdn Bhd, the firm was engaged where the court addressed the admissibility of documentary evidence and disputed notations, the burden of proof under sections 101 and 102 of the Evidence Act 1950, the requirement to plead forgery, the treatment of documentary statements under section 73A, and the drawing of an adverse inference for a failure to call a witness. The firm's record is a corporate-and-procedural litigation practice engaging the intersection of insolvency, contractual validity and the strict proof of documents. A recurring feature of the firm's matters is the deployment of Order 14A questions of law and strike-out applications to resolve, without a full trial, whether a transaction is void or an action time-barred, so that much of its advocacy is directed at the legal viability of a claim on assumed facts rather than at the resolution of contested primary fact, a discipline that carries through even to its appellate work on the proof of documents.