Tong Joe Jye

On the court record

Tong Joe Jye's reported practice is in commercial, company and civil-procedure litigation, appearing in the High Court and the Court of Appeal and acting for respondents, plaintiffs, appellants and defendants.

His work includes a Court of Appeal defamation matter in which he acted for a respondent. The claim concerned an anonymous digital "poison pen" letter circulated by email and WhatsApp and turned on the presumption of publication under section 114A(3) of the Evidence Act 1950 and the meaning of material that "originates from" a person; the court treated the metadata and circumstantial evidence as insufficient and dismissed the appeal.

A distinct strand concerns the remuneration of liquidators. In a matter involving the Finterra Global Plantations group and FGP Ventures Sdn Bhd, he acted for a respondent on the fees of interim liquidators under section 479 of the Companies Act 2016 — whether entitlement was established, whether a percentage or a time-cost basis was appropriate where no assets had been realised, and whether the charge-out rates and time spent were reasonable and adequately particularised.

He is closely engaged with civil procedure. Acting for a plaintiff, he was engaged on a striking-out application testing whether section 59 of the Probate and Administration Act 1959 is an absolute bar to beneficiaries commencing an action on behalf of an estate, or whether beneficiaries may act in special circumstances. Acting for an appellant, he was engaged on a judgment on admission under Order 27 rule 3 of the Rules of Court 2012 and the requirement that an admission be clear, unambiguous and unequivocal. And acting for defendants, he resisted an interlocutory injunction on American Cyanamid principles where a necessary party — a liquidator — had not been joined. The practice is commercial, company and procedural litigation, with a particular command of the interlocutory applications and threshold tests that can dispose of a case well before any trial.