Dispute Resolution

Recognition

Over the past few decades, the firm’s Dispute Resolution practice group has grown in stature to be recognised today as one of the leading dispute resolution teams among law firms in Malaysia, being constantly recommended by Legal 500 Asia Pacific, asialaw and Chambers Asia Pacific.

We have been ranked as Tier-1 in Dispute Resolution by Legal 500 Asia Pacific for 2017 – 2024 and highly recommended in asialaw often during the last 10 years.

In the survey conducted in 2022 by the In-House Community (a community of over 17,000 in-house legal counsel in Asia and the Middle East), the firm was named “Litigation and Dispute Resolution Law Firm of the Year, 2022 – Malaysia”.

We were also named as “Litigation Law Firm of the Year” in 2018 and again in 2020 at the Asian Legal Business Malaysia Law Awards. For the last few years, Benchmark Litigation has ranked our Construction team in Tier-1 for Construction litigation and ranked us highly for litigation in the areas of Commercial & Transactions, Labour & Employment, Tax and Intellectual Property.

In legal publications, clients have provided feedback and testimonials with words and phrases such as “fantastic”, “excellent”, “topdrawer litigators”, “responsive, knowledgeable and at the forefront of latest legal developments”. It has also been said that we provide “sound advice, brilliant strategies, diligent preparation and masterful advocacy skills” and have a “clear understanding of the issues from a business standpoint and able to render strategic legal approaches and solutions to the issues.”

The accolades we have received are the products, we believe, of our ability, enthusiasm and professionalism in managing, prosecuting and, when necessary, resolving our clients’ legal disputes, combined with our continuous efforts to expand and improve our dispute resolution services. 

Services

We have always had a strong presence in general commercial and civil litigation. At the same time, our specialist litigation practices in intellectual property, industrial relations, tax, construction, banking and finance and medico-legal disputes have also stamped their mark on the Malaysian legal scene. 

An example of the numerous medico-legal disputes we regularly handle is a 2022 case where our medical negligence team achieved a victory in the Court of Appeal on behalf of a medical specialist against whom damages of over RM8 million – the highest quantum ever awarded in a medical negligence case in Malaysia – had been awarded in the High Court. Our team took over the matter and procured the High Court’s finding of liability and quantum to be overturned. 

Our partners are experienced in dealing with corporate/shareholders’ disputes, including those founded on oppression, unfair discrimination and prejudice under the Companies Act 2016.

In regard to the area of banking and finance, aside from civil suits for the recovery of debts owed, we have successfully defended banking clients in actions for unjust enrichment, breach of contract, fraudulent action, negligence, conspiracy to injure and malicious prosecution Recently, representing a bank in the Court of Appeal and the Federal Court, we won a case where the Federal Court upheld the ruling that the consolidation of a judgment debtor’s bank accounts does not create a charge or security over the debt owed by the judgment debtor in his capacity as a guarantor to other credit facilities and that it does not amount to an automatic “merger” of the securities given by him.

We also have a thriving practice in arbitration, both in domestic as well as international arbitrations. Our arbitration team handles an array of commercial and construction disputes, including those that involve cross border transactions and projects with large international corporate entities and state-owned companies. 

Clients

Our clients include companies from wide-reaching industry sectors, such as aviation, banking and financial institutions, consumer goods, hospitality, healthcare, infrastructure, insurance, oil and gas, pharmaceuticals, manufacturing, media and technology.