Crest Worldwide Resources Sdn Bhd (In Liquidation)

On the court record

A reference point on security for costs against a foreign-resident litigant and on the natural-justice and stay/termination powers over a company already in liquidation.

Crest Worldwide Resources Sdn Bhd (In Liquidation) appears in the reported judgments as a company in liquidation whose affairs generated litigation at both the High Court (Mahkamah Tinggi) and the Court of Appeal (Mahkamah Rayuan). Its recurring involvement arises from a development project and the winding-up of the company, with the disputes touching security for costs, natural justice, and the court's supervisory powers over a company already wound up.

In one High Court matter the company stood as a respondent where the opposing party was ordinarily resident outside the jurisdiction and security for costs was sought under Order 23 rule 1 of the Rules of Court 2012. The court applied the two-stage inquiry — first asking whether the threshold condition was met, then exercising its discretion — and considered whether property that was itself the subject of the litigation could stand as sufficient security, ultimately ordering security in a reduced amount. The judgment also addressed the position of a company in liquidation and a former managing director whose concession did not render the damages claim academic, given the continuing exposure to legal costs.

A related appeal before the Court of Appeal raised weightier questions of principle: whether the second rule of natural justice mandatorily requires an oral hearing where written submissions have already been filed, and what consequence a breach of that rule carries. The same appeal examined how the Winding-Up Court should exercise its discretionary powers under section 492(1) of the Companies Act 2016 to stay all proceedings relating to a company already wound up, and under section 493(1) to terminate the winding-up proceedings. The decisions are a useful reference on the interaction between insolvency administration, procedural fairness and the security-for-costs jurisdiction where a party litigates from outside Malaysia. The company's dual character — a corporate defendant in the ordinary litigation and, simultaneously, an entity whose winding-up brings the supervisory jurisdiction of the Companies Act 2016 into play — is precisely what gives the decisions their reach beyond the immediate development dispute, since the reasoning on stay and termination binds later parties who deal with a company after it has been ordered to be wound up.