THIEN HONG MACHINERY Sdn Bhd

On the court record

A company litigating a defamation appeal and the setting aside and enforcement of an arbitral award under the Arbitration Act 2005 with minimal curial intervention.

Thien Hong Machinery (M) Sdn Bhd appears in the corpus in a defamation appeal and in connected arbitration-award proceedings.

One matter concerned consolidated appeals by defendants against a Sessions Court decision which, after a full trial, found them liable for defamation and awarded damages and injunctive relief in favour of the plaintiffs. The company, as an appellant, challenged that finding of liability, the appeal engaging the ordinary appellate review of a trial court's assessment of a defamation claim and the relief granted.

Two connected matters concerned an arbitral award, one to set the award aside and the other to enforce it, in which the company appeared as respondent and applicant respectively. The court examined the jurisdiction of the arbitral tribunal and the scope of the submission to arbitration, including whether the tribunal exceeded its jurisdiction by determining a new difference not contemplated by the parties, and whether the award should be set aside on public-policy grounds for illegality or regulatory non-compliance, engaging sections 37(1)(a)(iv) and (v) and 37(1)(b)(ii) and 37(2) of the Arbitration Act 2005. It emphasised the principle of minimal curial intervention, that the court does not re-evaluate errors of fact or law, and addressed a preliminary objection over the failure to specify the precise statutory limb, and judicial estoppel where inconsistent positions are taken.

Together the proceedings show a company litigating both an appeal from a defamation finding and the setting aside and enforcement of an arbitral award. The narrative reports the statutory provisions and the issues the courts identified, refers to natural persons by their role rather than by name, and states outcomes only as recorded, without expressing any view on the defamation finding or the merits of the arbitral award. The company's appearance as respondent on the set-aside and applicant on the enforcement of the same award illustrates the mirrored postures that arbitration-award litigation typically generates between the parties.