Elizabeth Lau

On the court record

Elizabeth Lau appears in the reported corpus as company and commercial litigation counsel, with shareholder disputes, cross-border jurisdiction and insolvency among the reported matters. In a derivative-action matter she was engaged on an application to strike out an originating summons, the question being whether the plaintiffs qualified as "complainants" under section 345 of the Companies Act 2016 and whether they were persons entitled to be registered as members, against the backdrop of an earlier judgment. Her corporate work also reaches the transmission of shares on death — whether shares devolving from a deceased shareholder to beneficiaries under a will constitute a transmission or a transfer, where an executor had obtained probate and effected a partial transfer with stamp duty paid.

Her reported matters include high-profile cross-border and insolvency litigation. In proceedings brought by 1Malaysia Development Berhad she was engaged on whether the Malaysian court had jurisdiction over the foreign law firm White & Case under section 23(1) of the Courts of Judicature Act 1964 and Order 11 of the Rules of Court 2012, in a claim framed in dishonest assistance. She also appeared in a winding-up petition attended by a cluster of interlocutory applications — to appoint an interim liquidator, to strike out the petition, for an ad interim stay and to expunge affidavits — and at the Federal Court in a matter raising whether witnesses enjoy absolute immunity from civil liability for evidence given in judicial proceedings, the doctrine of the finality of litigation, whether the tort of malicious prosecution applies to civil proceedings in Malaysia, and whether fraud based on perjury could found a claim. The reported matters place her in company, jurisdictional and insolvency litigation at every level of court. Across these reported decisions her work moves between the substantive law of companies and shares and the procedural and jurisdictional gateways — striking out, service out of the jurisdiction and the appointment of interim officers — through which high-value corporate and insolvency disputes are fought, often against a backdrop of related litigation.