Choo Shi Jin

On the court record

Choo Shi Jin appears in the reported corpus as a commercial and construction litigator, with contract construction, defamation and injunctions among the reported matters at the High Court, Court of Appeal and Federal Court. At the Federal Court he was engaged in a commercial-contract appeal turning on the construction of an endeavours clause — the difference between an unqualified endeavours obligation and a reasonable-endeavours one — argued alongside the burden of proof, the contra proferentem rule, the maxim generalia specialibus non derogant, a guarantee and the relevance of post-formation conduct to the interpretation of a commercial contract. His construction work appears in a matter arising from a construction contract involving the Malaysian Rubber Board, a body corporate established under the Malaysian Rubber Board (Incorporation) Act 1996.

His reported work also reaches reputation and interlocutory relief. He was engaged in a defamation matter concerning the transfer of proceedings from the High Court to the Sessions Court and the current trend in the award of damages for defamation, and in an injunction matter on the variation of an interlocutory injunction, where the test was whether a material change of circumstances — such as a change in the status of a project from construction to completion — justified varying the order. He also appeared in a matter resolved after a full trial, argued on a judgment in Bahasa Malaysia, in which the plaintiff's claim against the second defendant was dismissed with costs. Across these reported decisions his work moves between the interpretation of commercial and construction contracts, the law of defamation and the variation of injunctive relief, marking Choo Shi Jin as a commercial and construction litigator engaged with both the substantive construction of contracts and the interlocutory relief that shapes a dispute. Across these reported decisions the recurring thread is the construction and enforcement of commercial and construction arrangements, whether by interpreting the words of a contract at the apex court or by adjusting interlocutory relief as a project moves from construction to completion, marking a practice grounded in commercial and construction disputes.