Ricky Tan & Co.

On the court record

Ricky Tan & Co. is a Malaysian firm whose reported matters before the High Court (Mahkamah Tinggi) span insurance, company, land and civil-procedure litigation. In the insurance field it has appeared in a claim under a construction all-risks policy for flood damage, where the insurer repudiated liability and the court examined whether policy clauses requiring compliance with material-storage limits and flood-safety measures were valid and enforceable and whether they constituted conditions precedent to the insurer's liability. In the corporate field it has litigated minority oppression under section 346 of the Companies Act 2016, engaging the exercise of majority power against minority oppression and whether the company operated as a quasi-partnership within the principles of Ebrahimi v Westbourne Galleries.

The firm's land and contract work includes a claim by landowners over earthworks and road-construction works carried out around their land without their consent, said to have caused physical disturbance, and a full-trial dispute arising from the offer of part of a plot of land for a used-car business, engaging deposits and payments made toward a tenancy. A distinctive matter concerned a family of American-Singaporean expatriates who had intended to make a home in Malaysia through the Malaysia My Second Home programme, and the dispute that arose with the developer. The firm has also argued striking-out applications under Order 18 Rule 19 of the Rules of Court 2012, testing whether bare allegations of fraud and conspiracy were sustainable and whether the filing of a judicial-management application gave rise to liability.

In the Malaysia My Second Home matter the firm acted in the dispute that arose between a family of foreign residents and the developer, an unusual example of litigation touching the residency programme promoted to attract foreigners to settle in Malaysia. The reported profile is that of a commercial and property-litigation practice engaged with insurance coverage and conditions precedent, shareholder oppression and the quasi-partnership, land and development disputes, and the striking out of unsustainable fraud and conspiracy claims.