Lai Chee Hoe

On the court record

A civil-and-administrative litigation practice combining judicial review with commercial, property and industrial-relations disputes.

Lai Chee Hoe practises in civil and administrative litigation, appearing across the Court of Appeal (Mahkamah Rayuan) and the High Court (Mahkamah Tinggi). The reported decisions combine public-law and commercial work. Judicial review ("semakan kehakiman") is a recurring vehicle, engaging challenges to administrative decisions and to the validity of instruments made under statutory power, and there is industrial-relations and company work alongside it.

A distinctive strand concerns the classification and regulation of property developments — the reported matters include a dispute over whether a development, such as a commercial complex, falls within a particular statutory or contractual category, and the consequences that follow for the parties' rights and obligations. Appearing as appellant, defendant and plaintiff, the practice is instructed both by parties challenging official or corporate decisions and by those defending them, in matters that turn on the interpretation of statute and of the governing documents.

The work sits at the meeting point of private commercial interests and public regulation. In the judicial-review matters the argument is whether a decision-maker acted within power and fairly; in the property-classification matters it is the correct construction of the statutory or contractual scheme; and in the industrial and company matters it is the application of the governing legislation to a workplace or corporate dispute. Several matters reach the Court of Appeal on questions of law arising from a High Court decision.

The overall profile is a civil-and-administrative litigation practice conducted at first instance and on appeal, combining judicial review with commercial, property and industrial-relations disputes. The matters turn on statutory interpretation, the limits of administrative and corporate decision-making, and the classification of developments and workplaces under the governing law, rather than on any criminal dimension, marking a practice that bridges private disputes and public regulation. The recurring use of judicial review as the procedural gateway ties the commercial and property matters back to the supervisory jurisdiction of the courts over administrative power.