Zailan & Co.

On the court record

A commercial-litigation and costs-taxation practice engaging bills of costs under Order 59, estate-agency commission and corporate-veil questions, and the evidential proof of delivery in debt-recovery claims.

Zailan & Co. is recorded in the corpus in commercial litigation and in the taxation of costs, before the High Court. In one matter the firm acted for the respondent in a dispute over the taxation of a bill of costs, where the questions were whether Order 59 rule 16 or rule 17 of the Rules of Court 2012 should apply and whether the amount stated in the bill of costs was reasonable — a matter arising against the background of a medical-negligence claim involving a hospital and government parties. In a second matter the firm acted for the defence in an estate-agency commission dispute, where the court examined the validity of a marketing appointment letter and its admissibility under the Stamp Act 1949, whether a real estate negotiator rather than a registered estate agent could validly sign, whether the agent was the effective cause of the sale, and whether the corporate veil should be lifted so as to make a parent company liable for a subsidiary's obligations — engaging the distinction between the concealment and evasion principles and the tests for when normal parent-company oversight tips into an abuse of corporate form. In a third matter the firm acted for the plaintiff in a claim for goods sold and delivered, where the defendants denied receiving a substantial part of the goods and the court scrutinised the deficiencies in the statement of claim and the weaknesses in the evidence of delivery, including whether the delivery orders had been properly acknowledged and authenticated by production of the originals. Across these matters the firm is recorded engaged with costs taxation, estate-agency and corporate-veil questions, and the evidential proof of delivery in debt-recovery claims, work that turns closely on documentary evidence and the applicable procedural and statutory rules. In the goods-sold matter the court required the delivery orders to be authenticated by production of the originals or by evidence identifying them, the absence of proper acknowledgements undermining the proof of delivery.