MANGKUBUMI Sdn Bhd

On the court record

Illustrates how a single enterprise engages competition-law judicial review, construction-payment adjudication and financing recovery in parallel.

Mangkubumi Sdn Bhd appears in the reported judgments as a company litigating in the High Court (Mahkamah Tinggi) across a competition-law judicial review, a construction-payment dispute and a factoring recovery action. The decisions show a company exposed to regulatory investigation, construction claims and financing-recovery proceedings.

In one matter the company was an applicant seeking judicial review and certiorari in respect of an investigation by the competition authority into complaints of bid rigging. The court considered a proposed decision issued by the authority under the Competition Act 2010, challenged for an allegedly invalid investigation, and the question of when a challenge is available, engaging procedural impropriety and sections 14, 15, 18, 36 and 40 of the Act. That reflects the reviewability of a competition regulator's investigative and decision-making process and the timing at which such a challenge may be mounted.

A second decision engaged the company as a defendant in a construction-payment dispute, where the court considered whether a sub-contract had been revised, whether the plaintiff was entitled to a substantial sum for works carried out under a measurement basis, and whether the defendant was entitled to impose backcharges — noting that, absent proof of payment to substantiate the backcharges, they could not be allowed, and that section 37 of the Construction Industry Payment and Adjudication Act 2012 permits arbitration or litigation to proceed concurrently with adjudication. A third matter concerned a factoring dispute in which a bank, as assignee under an absolute assignment of book debts, sought summary judgment under Order 14 of the Rules of Court 2012, engaging interim certificates of payment, notice of assignment, whether the assignee could sue the debtor directly, a conclusive-evidence clause and privity of contract. Across the decisions, the company illustrates how a single commercial enterprise engages competition-law review, construction-payment adjudication and financing recovery in parallel.