Lai Yee Fan

On the court record

A defendant-side civil and commercial litigation practice weighted toward contract and corporate disputes.

Lai Yee Fan practises in civil and commercial litigation, appearing across the High Court (Mahkamah Tinggi) and the Court of Appeal (Mahkamah Rayuan), with the reported decisions weighted toward the defendant side. The caseload is contract and corporate. Contract disputes recur, including matters arising from an estate-agency agreement and the entitlement of a registered estate agent to commission, and the reported work engages the construction of commercial agreements and the obligations they create.

A distinctive corporate strand concerns the corporate veil: the reported matters include the lifting of the corporate veil, where the court is asked to look behind the separate legal personality of a company to hold those who control it responsible. There is also interlocutory injunction work ("injunksi interim") and questions of evidence law that bear on how a commercial dispute is proved. Appearing largely as defendant, but also as plaintiff, appellant and respondent, the practice is instructed principally in resisting commercial claims and testing whether the plaintiff has established its case.

The work turns on the construction of agreements and on the principles of company and evidence law. In the estate-agency matters the argument concerns whether the agent earned the commission under the terms agreed; in the veil-lifting matters whether the exceptional circumstances justifying disregard of separate personality are present; and in the injunction matters whether the threshold for interim relief is met. The evidential questions concern what may be proved and how, in a contested commercial trial.

The overall profile is a defendant-side civil and commercial litigation practice conducted at first instance and on appeal, weighted toward contract and corporate disputes with a recurring veil-lifting and interlocutory element. The matters turn on the construction of commercial agreements, the doctrine of separate corporate personality, and the principles governing interim injunctions and evidence, rather than on any criminal or public-law dimension.