MTRUSTEE BERHAD (yang dahulunya dikenali sebagai AmTrustee Berhad)

On the court record

Marks the boundaries of what disclosure a judgment creditor may compel from a corporate debtor and its officers through the judgment-debtor summons under Order 48.

MTrustee Berhad (formerly known as AmTrustee Berhad) appears in the reported judgments as a corporate trustee litigating as a plaintiff and judgment creditor in the High Court (Mahkamah Tinggi), in matters concerning the enforcement of a judgment against a corporate debtor. Acting in its capacity as trustee for a real estate investment trust, its involvement centres on the mechanics of the judgment-debtor summons and the disclosure a creditor may compel from a debtor company.

The reported decision concerns an appeal to the judge in chambers against a decision of the senior assistant registrar dismissing an oral application by the company, as judgment creditor, made before the commencement of the judgment-debtor summons hearing, seeking to require the corporate judgment debtor to produce previous years' bank accounts. The debtor being a body corporate, the questions were whether the judgment creditor had complied with the requirements of Order 48 rule 1(2) of the Rules of Court 2012 — by obtaining leave to issue a judgment-debtor summons against an officer of the company and leave for that officer to produce relevant documents — and whether the creditor's request amounted to an asset-tracing exercise or a historical assessment of monies spent, rather than a proper enquiry into the debtor's present ability to satisfy the judgment.

Those questions define the proper scope of the judgment-debtor summons as a post-judgment enforcement tool. The procedure is directed at ascertaining a debtor's means to satisfy an outstanding judgment, and the court's task was to consider whether the documents sought fell within that purpose or strayed into a broader investigation of the company's financial history. For a judgment creditor in the company's position, the decision marks the boundaries of what disclosure may be compelled from a corporate debtor and its officers under Order 48, and the procedural leave requirements that condition the use of the judgment-debtor summons against a body corporate.