Lead Enterprises Sdn Bhd

On the court record

A company litigating the enforcement of an injunction undertaking in damages, abuse-of-process and res judicata questions, and a deemed-retirement point on directors, across a group of connected proceedings.

Lead Enterprises Sdn Bhd appears in the corpus in company and commercial litigation in which the dominant themes are abuse of process, the consequences of a discharged injunction, and the retirement of directors. It appears as plaintiff, defendant, applicant and respondent across the High Court and Court of Appeal, in a group of connected proceedings.

A prominent strand concerns the undertaking in damages that supports an interlocutory injunction. After injunctions had been discharged, the court considered whether the corporate defendants were entitled to damages on the undertaking, whether a finding that the injunction had been "wrongly granted" was a necessary condition, and whether special circumstances existed to bar enforcement of the undertaking, against a backdrop that included a letter of intent expressed to be "subject to contract". The enforcement of an undertaking in damages is an important discipline on the grant of injunctive relief, ensuring that a party restrained by an injunction that should not have been granted can be compensated.

The other themes echo through the connected matters. In a striking-out under Order 18 rule 19 of the Rules of Court 2012, a conspiracy claim was treated as a possible collateral attack on previous decisions, engaging res judicata, the prematurity of a claim dependent on pending litigation, and the multiplicity of proceedings over the same subject matter. A Malay-language appeal concerned a claim dismissed for a failure to obtain the leave of the Bankruptcy Court before proceeding. At the Court of Appeal a company-law question arose over deemed retirement — whether a director due to retire by rotation under the articles of association may be deemed to have retired where no annual general meeting was held to re-elect the retiring directors. The company's footprint is a study in the courts' control of repetitive litigation and in the accountability that attaches to obtaining an injunction that is later set aside.