GLORY PEARL Sdn Bhd

On the court record

Places a purchaser at the intersection of sale-and-purchase protection and the insolvency framework governing claims against a developer already in liquidation.

Glory Pearl Sdn Bhd appears in the reported judgments as a purchaser-side litigant and intervener in disputes arising out of a city-centre development, with matters in the High Court (Mahkamah Tinggi) and the Court of Appeal (Mahkamah Rayuan). Its involvement links a straightforward late-delivery claim to the more intricate questions that arise when the developer against whom that claim lies is itself in liquidation.

At first instance the company was a plaintiff claiming specific performance of its sale and purchase agreements and damages for late delivery of vacant possession, in one of two suits concerning three properties within a development known as The Crest along Jalan Sultan Ismail. That claim reflects the ordinary position of a buyer enforcing its rights against a developer that has failed to deliver on time.

The company's appellate involvement is bound up with the insolvency of that developer. As an intervener before the Court of Appeal it was drawn into questions of principle concerning a company already wound up — whether the second rule of natural justice mandatorily requires an oral hearing where written submissions have been filed, and what follows from any breach, together with 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 previously wound up, and under section 493(1) to terminate those proceedings. The decisions place the company at the intersection of two bodies of law: the protection of purchasers under sale and purchase agreements, and the insolvency framework that governs how claims are pursued once the developer has passed into liquidation. That intersection is where much of the difficulty lies for a buyer in the company's position, because a well-founded claim for late delivery and specific performance may be worth little if it cannot be pursued or enforced against a developer whose affairs are now controlled by a liquidator and by the supervisory jurisdiction of the Winding-Up Court. The company's appearance as both a first-instance plaintiff and an appellate intervener captures that progression: from asserting straightforward contractual rights, to grappling with the leave, stay and termination questions that the Companies Act 2016 imposes once the counterparty is insolvent, and with the natural-justice standards that govern how those questions are decided.