MUJUR ZAMAN Sdn Bhd

On the court record

Company-law and contract litigation turning on the validity of sale and purchase agreements where the developer was wound up, argued largely through Order 14A questions of law and Order 18 rule 19 striking-out applications.

Mujur Zaman Sdn Bhd features in a connected cluster of High Court litigation arising from a property development and the contractual arrangements around it, in which the company appears mostly as a defendant and, in one consolidated action, as a plaintiff. The recurring legal questions concern the effect of a developer being wound up after a sale and purchase agreement had been executed, and whether such agreements are void or unenforceable.

Several matters were argued as questions of law under Order 14A of the Rules of Court 2012. The courts were asked whether a sale and purchase agreement was unlawful for contravening the prohibitions in sections 223 and 293 of the Companies Act 1965 when the developer had been wound up, whether the agreement was frustrated under section 57(2) of the Contracts Act 1950, and whether the claims were time-barred. Related striking-out applications under Order 18 rule 19 raised whether the claims were plainly unsustainable, and whether agreements executed after the presentation of a winding-up petition were void ab initio in the absence of a validation order, with limitation under section 6(1)(a) of the Limitation Act also in issue.

The company was also drawn into procedural skirmishing: applications to strike out an amended defence and counterclaim and to stay proceedings pending the disposal of related appeals, and an application in Malay to set aside an originating summons — a "permohonan … untuk membatalkan Saman Pemula" (an application to strike out the originating summons) under Order 18 rule 19. In a consolidated full trial concerning contractual payments under a 2012 agreement, the court recorded its disposition expressly: it entered final judgment for the claimants in one suit and dismissed the companion suit with costs, having found no merit in fact or law. The pattern across these matters is procedural as much as substantive: the company's exposure is repeatedly tested at the threshold — through questions of law and striking-out — before any full trial of the underlying development and payment dispute is reached, with limitation and the winding-up timeline doing much of the analytical work.