Merissa Ann Augustin

On the court record

A commercial-and-public-law litigation practice combining judicial review with contract, company and employment disputes.

Merissa Ann Augustin practises in commercial and public-law litigation, appearing across the Federal Court (Mahkamah Persekutuan), the High Court (Mahkamah Tinggi) and the Court of Appeal (Mahkamah Rayuan), with the reported decisions weighted toward the respondent side. Judicial review is prominent, and a recurring subject is procedural impropriety — whether a decision-maker followed a fair and lawful process — together with breach-of-contract and other commercial disputes.

The reported work engages summary judgment, including an appeal against an order for summary judgment, and company and insolvency questions such as winding up, alongside industrial-relations matters including unfair dismissal. Appearing largely as respondent, but also as defendant and appellant, the practice is instructed in defending decisions and commercial outcomes and in resisting challenges to them, in matters that turn on the interpretation of statute and contract and on the fairness and legality of the process below.

The work turns on the principles of judicial review, contract and civil procedure. In the judicial-review matters the argument concerns whether the decision-maker acted fairly and within power, and in particular whether there was procedural impropriety; in the summary-judgment matters whether there is a triable issue; in the contract matters the terms agreed and the consequences of breach; and in the winding-up and dismissal matters the governing statutory framework. The matters that reach the Federal Court turn on questions of law of general importance.

The overall profile is a commercial-and-public-law litigation practice conducted at every tier up to the Federal Court, combining judicial review with contract, company and employment disputes. The matters turn on the principles of judicial review, the construction of contracts, and the companies and industrial-relations frameworks, rather than on any criminal dimension, marking a practice that bridges commercial disputes and the review of official decisions. The recurring procedural-impropriety ground ties the commercial and employment matters back to the courts' review of whether a fair process was followed.