PUBLIC ISLAMIC BANK BERHAD

On the court record

An Islamic bank whose litigation centres on security enforcement — hire-purchase repossession under section 16(1A), chargee auctions and Mareva injunctions — and the defence of negligence and fraud claims arising from secured lending.

Public Islamic Bank Berhad, an Islamic banking subsidiary, appears in the corpus in the litigation typical of a financing institution — charge and auction disputes, hire-purchase enforcement, and the defence of professional-negligence and fraud claims tied to secured lending. It appears as defendant, appellant, respondent and, in one matter, intervener.

Security enforcement is a recurring theme. In a hire-purchase appeal the Court of Appeal addressed repossession where instalments exceeding 75% of the cash price had been paid and there had been default of two consecutive instalments, considering whether an application for leave to issue statutory notices under section 16(1A) of the Hire-Purchase Act 1967 should be made inter partes or ex parte, and the purpose of that provision. In a chargee's auction dispute, the bank faced an originating summons to set aside an auction and maintain the status quo of the property, the chargors contending that the sale contravened a Mareva injunction and complaining of a failure to provide a copy of the proclamation of sale.

The bank has also defended broader claims. A consolidated judgment dealt with five striking-out applications in a professional-negligence and fraud claim arising from a land purchase, where the plaintiffs had earlier lost a suit in which their title was declared null and void. Other matters were procedural: whether a breach of statutory duty was a question of fact or one of law or construction fit for summary determination under Order 14A, an injunction premised on fraud and the requirements for a proprietary and Mareva injunction under Order 29, and a Malay-language application for extension of time to serve a notice of appeal, where the court held that the personal reasons offered for the delay could not be accepted. Across these matters the bank sits on the enforcement side of secured lending, and the recurring judicial concern is procedural fairness to the borrower or chargor — the mode of a leave application, notice of a proclamation of sale, and compliance with time limits — set against the bank's contractual and statutory entitlement to realise its security.