James Khong

On the court record

James Khong appears in the corpus in High Court (Mahkamah Tinggi) and Court of Appeal (Mahkamah Rayuan) matters ranging from probate to corporate standing to medical negligence. One High Court matter, appearing for the defendant, was a probate and succession dispute over the validity of competing wills — whether they were duly executed, whether the testator had testamentary capacity, and whether suspicious circumstances surrounded their making — together with an interlocutory application about the order in which the parties should open and close their respective cases. A second matter, appearing for the defendant, was a striking-out application under Order 18 rule 19(1) of the Rules of Court 2012 directed at a counterclaim advancing misappropriation and beneficial-ownership claims; the court engaged the proper-plaintiff rule in Foss v Harbottle, the counterclaim plaintiff's locus standi as neither a registered nor a beneficial shareholder, the rule against reflective loss, non-compliance with the derivative-action procedure under section 347 of the Companies Act 2016, and an alleged resulting trust said to arise from the funding of share acquisitions out of arbitration proceeds, which failed for want of contemporaneous documentary proof. A third matter, in the Court of Appeal and appearing for the respondent, was a medical-negligence appeal engaging the duty of care and informed consent — the failure to disclose material risks and a departure from a multidisciplinary tumour board's recommendation, and the choice between radiofrequency ablation and cryoablation — assessed under the Bolam test, together with the assessment of general and special damages for a full-thickness burn requiring multiple surgeries and prolonged treatment, and questions of novus actus interveniens and the reasonableness of private medical expenses. The corporate matter is a particularly clear illustration of how the rules on standing can be decisive: a complaint of misappropriation may be well-founded in substance and still fail because the party bringing it is neither a registered nor a beneficial shareholder and has not used the derivative-action route the statute requires. Across the appearances the practice moves between contested succession, the corporate standing and derivative-action rules that govern shareholder complaints, and the standard of care in medical treatment.