Yohendra Nadarajan

On the court record

The firm's record illustrates the rebuttable presumption of unlicensed moneylending under section 10OA of the Moneylenders Act 1951 and the requirement of positive fraud under section 44 of the Evidence Act 1950 to impeach an earlier judgment affecting Malay Reservation land.

Yohendra Nadarajan appears in the corpus as counsel in commercial, corporate and land litigation, argued in the High Court (Mahkamah Tinggi) and the Court of Appeal (Mahkamah Rayuan).

One matter concerned the enforceability of a collaboration agreement. Acting for the defendant against AR Asset Management (M) Sdn Bhd, the firm appeared where the court examined whether the agreement was a binding contract or a non-binding memorandum of understanding, the intention to create legal relations, and whether a breach had been established through a failure to make agreed payments and the diversion of collection proceeds. The same matter raised a moneylending defence, the court considering whether the plaintiff was an unlicensed moneylender and whether the presumption under section 10OA of the Moneylenders Act 1951 had been rebutted by the commercial nature of the collaboration, together with the validity of a deed of assignment said to be void for want of consideration.

The firm also appeared in a strike-out application concerning third-party proceedings, acting for the defendant, where a derivative action had been brought in the name of a company and the question was whether a third-party notice was plainly and obviously unsustainable, whether a claim for contribution depended on a fiduciary duty between directors, and whether issues of liability, contribution and joint-tortfeasor status should be determined at trial rather than by a mini-trial in summary proceedings under Order 16 rule 6 and Order 18 rule 19 of the Rules of Court 2012.

In land work the firm acted for an appellant in a matter alleging a judgment obtained by fraud, engaging a power of attorney and a memorandum of transfer of Malay Reservation land, the definition of a Malay under the relevant reservation enactment, a statutory declaration as evidence of that status, and a fresh action to impeach an earlier judgment for positive fraud under section 44 of the Evidence Act 1950. The firm's record is a commercial-and-land litigation practice engaging contract, corporate and property questions.