Goik Kenzu

On the court record

Goik Kenzu appears in the corpus in property, insolvency and land-acquisition litigation, argued in the High Court (Mahkamah Tinggi) and the Court of Appeal (Mahkamah Rayuan). One High Court matter, appearing for the plaintiff, was an originating summons — a 'Saman Pemula' — in which the plaintiff sought to extend two private caveats pending the disposal of a probate suit between the heirs of a deceased person; the plaintiff's case was that a sale-and-purchase agreement had rested on an unlawful money loan such that the property had been transferred to the defendant as security pending repayment, and the court examined whether the plaintiff had locus standi, whether the plaintiff had a caveatable interest, whether there was a serious question to be tried, and where the balance of convenience lay. A Court of Appeal matter, appearing for the respondent, concerned undue preference in a winding-up: whether the High Court had wrongly applied section 528 of the Companies Act 2016 when the claim was said still to be void under section 293 of the earlier Companies Act 1965 in respect of a board resolution passed shortly before the winding-up, together with questions about restrictive clauses in deeds, privity of contract and the requirements for a valid assignment of debt under section 4(3) of the Civil Law Act 1956. A third matter, in the High Court and appearing for the applicant, arose from a land acquisition for the LRT 3 project, where the project's paymaster sought to intervene in judicial review proceedings that sought a mandamus compelling payment of the sums due on the acquisition. A thread running through the caveat and undue-preference matters is the protection of interests that sit behind the registered or apparent position — a claimant's asserted equitable interest in land held by another, and a liquidator's power to unwind a transaction that unfairly preferred one creditor on the eve of winding-up. Across the appearances the practice combines caveats and property protection, insolvency avoidance provisions and the machinery of compulsory land acquisition.