Ponnie Govindasamy

On the court record

Ponnie Govindasamy's reported practice is concentrated in insolvency and company litigation, appearing in the High Court and the Court of Appeal and acting for applicants, respondents and, in appeals, both sides.

A distinct strand is the winding-up process and the machinery of liquidation. In a matter concerning Shencourt Properties Sdn Bhd he acted for an applicant on the rejection of a proof of debt by a liquidator. The chain of events was itself the issue: after an earlier proof of debt was rejected by the previous liquidators, an application to remove them was allowed on appeal and the Official Receiver was appointed liquidator; a fresh proof of debt for the same debt was then filed and rejected again, raising whether the earlier unappealed rejection foreclosed the new proof. In a related matter concerning the same company in liquidation he acted for a respondent on an application to fix a sole liquidator's remuneration on a time-cost basis, where the appropriateness of that method was questioned given delay in the conduct of the liquidation.

A second strand is minority oppression. He appeared in the Court of Appeal in the related appeals concerning CJ Polymers Sdn Bhd, acting as respondent's and appellant's counsel across the appeals, on whether the removal of a member from management with shares locked in was oppressive, whether a pending misconduct suit against the minority barred an oppression action, whether a sale of shares to a new investor terminated a quasi-partnership on the facts, and whether a valuation expert should be cross-examined where the original buyout order did not provide for it.

Across these matters the practice is company and insolvency litigation, with a particular command of the contested points that arise inside a liquidation — the proof and rejection of debts, the removal and remuneration of liquidators, and the shareholder remedies that sit alongside them.