Yeoh Cho Kheong

On the court record

The reported matters span land-fraud, statutory-compensation and contract work, grounded in High Court and Court of Appeal judgments.

Yeoh Cho Kheong's reported matters, argued through Messrs Ranjit Singh & Yeoh, cover land fraud and indefeasibility, statutory compensation and contract, across the High Court and the Court of Appeal. A significant group of related Court of Appeal appeals arose from a land-fraud case, where the High Court had found against several individuals and a law firm in connection with fraudulent dealings in land, and the appeals engaged the established authority on the indefeasibility of a registered title and the position of a proprietor who acquires under a forged or fraudulent instrument. Appearing for the respondents in those appeals, the matter turned on the protection the Torrens system affords and its limits where fraud is shown.

Statutory compensation features in a Court of Appeal appeal concerning late-payment interest under the Electricity Supply Act 1990 for delayed wayleave compensation, together with the landowner's right to adequate compensation under Article 13(2) of the Federal Constitution; appearing for the appellant landowner, the Court addressed the period over which interest ran on the compensation until it was fully paid.

Contract completes the profile. In a High Court matter a plaintiff claimed an introducer's fee arising from a sale of land, relying on a purported mandate letter, where the question was whether the plaintiff had discharged the evidentiary burden; appearing for the defendant, the Court found the claim must fail for want of proof and dismissed the plaintiff's action with costs of RM70,000. A thread across these decisions is the protection of title and entitlement, whether a registered proprietor against a fraudulent transfer, a landowner's constitutional right to adequate and timely compensation, or a claimant's need to prove the basis of a fee, argued in the High Court and before the Court of Appeal of Malaysia. The reported work is characteristically concerned with land and the rights attached to it, and with the evidence needed to establish or defend a claim over property and its proceeds.