ASM Development Sdn Bhd

On the court record

A property developer litigating strata subdivision and common-area utility disputes with a joint management body, alongside judicial-management and construction-adjudication proceedings under the Companies Act 2016 and CIPAA 2012.

ASM Development Sdn Bhd is a property developer, and it appears in the corpus in the litigation that surrounds a completed strata development — disputes with the joint management body over subdivision and utilities, company-law proceedings including judicial management, and construction adjudication. It appears as respondent and applicant.

A recurring counterpart is the joint management body of a strata scheme. In one High Court suit the joint management body sued the developer after discovering that premiums necessary to progress the subdivision application had not been paid. A related dispute concerned the electricity supply for the common area of the subdivided strata buildings: the joint management body had refused to open new accounts with the electricity utility, so consumption for the common area continued under an account in the developer's name, raising the meaning of "consumer" under the Electricity Supply Act 1990.

The company's affairs have also generated company-law and construction litigation. There was an application for the appointment of an interim judicial manager under section 405 of the Companies Act 2016, the court examining the elements for such an appointment and whether it was required, and a related question under section 469(1)(c) of the same Act over the release of stakeholder funds held pursuant to interlocutory orders following the dismissal of a challenge. A further matter raised whether proceedings had been filed in the wrong forum and whether only the owners who signed the sale and purchase agreement, rather than the developer that prepared it, could seek the reliefs claimed. At the Federal Court, a construction dispute concerned the enforcement of an adjudication decision under the Construction Industry Payment and Adjudication Act 2012 and whether enforcement under section 28 could be stayed under section 16. The developer's litigation thus tracks the full life-cycle of a strata project — from the completion and subdivision obligations owed to purchasers and their joint management body, through disputes over utilities and stakeholder funds, to the company-law and insolvency questions that arise when the development's financing comes under strain.