N2N CONNECT BERHAD

On the court record

Shows how a listed technology group leads and sustains complex trade-secrets litigation through both its substantive claims and the procedural contests they generate.

N2N Connect Berhad appears in the reported judgments as the lead listed technology company in a group of related entities pursuing a substantial trade-secrets and employment dispute, litigated in the High Court (Mahkamah Tinggi) and the Court of Appeal (Mahkamah Rayuan). It heads the plaintiff and applicant side of proceedings brought against former personnel and competing entities.

The substantive claims, as framed on appeal before the Court of Appeal, comprised copyright infringement, breach of confidence, the misuse of confidential information and trade secrets, breach of employment contracts and the duties of fidelity, fiduciary duty and trust, conspiracy and dishonest assistance, unlawful interference with trade, and conversion. That constellation of causes of action is typical of a claim by a technology group that departing employees have taken proprietary material to a rival, and it places the company at the head of an effort to protect the group's confidential business assets across several defendants.

The interlocutory decisions show the dispute contested at close quarters. One matter concerned a notice to produce documents, where the court considered whether it had jurisdiction to set the notice aside, whether the notice was an abuse of process, and whether it sought to circumvent the completed discovery process and a document-classification framework, under sections 65 and 66 of the Evidence Act 1950 and Orders 34 and 92 of the Rules of Court 2012. Another arose from a mediation before a judicial commissioner in which broad settlement terms were recorded but the parties could not agree a draft consent judgment; after reviewing the audio-video recording of the mediation, the court decided which version had been agreed, and the resulting sealed consent judgment was then challenged on grounds distinct from the usual fraud, mistake or total failure of consideration. Across the decisions, the company illustrates how a listed group leads and sustains complex trade-secrets litigation through both its substantive claims and the procedural contests they generate.