The Malaysian Lawyer continues with its annual listing of the largest law firms in Malaysia for the year 2023. The statistics are as at 18 December 2023 and where the law firm is the aggregate of the number of lawyers in all its branches. The Year 2023 In Review The Stability and Growth of the Larger Law Firms Overall, we continue to see stable numbers at the largest law firms. For several years in a row, the three largest law firms in Malaysia continue to be Zaid Ibrahim & Co (in association with KPMG Law), Shearn Delamore & Co, and Skrine. The rankings and numbers in the list of lar ..read more

On 16 November 2023, the Court of Appeal in Oren Venture Sdn Bhd v Small Medium Enterprise Development Bank Malaysia Berhad (Court of Appeal Civil Appeal No. W-02(IM)(MUA)-587-04/2022) upheld the High Court decision (reported at [2022] 12 MLJ 247 and where I had written about it here). Set out below is the extract from the Court of Appeal cause list website and with the Court setting out the brief grounds of decision (in the Malay language only). The full written grounds of decision do not appear available yet. I may write a fuller update once I have read the written grounds. Brief ..read more

The Companies Amendment Bill 2023 provides enhancements to the beneficial ownership of companies framework and will usher in stronger statutory footing to enforce beneficial ownership reporting. Current Law Section 2 of the Companies Act 2016 (CA 2016) only defines ‘beneficial owner’ as ‘the ultimate owner of the shares and does not include a nominee of any description’. Information on the beneficial ownership of shares will be disclosed under section 56 of the CA 2016. The current beneficial ownership reporting regime is also governed by the Companies Commission of Malaysia’s Guideline for t ..read more

Malaysia’s Companies Amendment Bill 2023 has been tabled before Parliament’s House of Representatives (see Hansard for 10 October 2023). There will be a fuller Parliamentary debate towards the end of November 2023. This article focuses on the 9 key restructuring and corporate rescue amendments. All references below will be to the existing and proposed new sections in the Companies Act 2016 as referred to in the Companies Amendment Bill 2023. #1: Wider Restraining Order The restraining order is often critical in ensuring a moratorium on legal proceedings against the scheme company applying for ..read more

The Federal Court in MDSA Resources Sdn Bhd v Adrian Sia Koon Leng has ruled on the issue of the votes of related-party creditors in a scheme of arrangement. This has an impact on the classification of related-party creditors for schemes of arrangement in Malaysia. With the Federal Court’s 2-1 split decision, I share the majority judgment  and the dissenting minority judgment. Summary of the Decision and Significance Majority Grounds by: Nordin Hassan FCJ The scheme company, MDSA Resources Sdn Bhd (MDSA), had undertaken a scheme of arrangement to restructure its debts of more than RM370 ..read more

  The Malaysia Insolvency Conference 2023 was held on 21 June 2023 and it made a return to a physical setting after 3 years. We saw a record turnout of attendees from the restructuring and insolvency community. I spoke at a panel session titled ‘Landmark Cases: Sharing on Insolvency and Restructuring’ and spoke with fellow insolvency specialists. I set out a selection of 6 key recent trends we discussed and prepared for the panel discussion. I have also supplemented some of the legal points with additional research I made. #1:  Detailed Statement of Proposal and Proposed Judicial Ma ..read more

I first started cycling on a road bike exactly a year ago. I am now an avid cyclist and I am out cycling every weekend and on some weeknights. I wanted to find out what are the applicable Malaysian road traffic laws to cyclists. The main law is under the Road Transport Act 1987 (Road Transport Act) and the subsidiary laws in the Road Traffic Rules 1959 (Road Traffic Rules). Out of interest, the Road Traffic Rules were enacted under the earlier Road Traffic Ordinance 1958. The Ordinance was repealed by the passing of the Road Transport Act but where the Rules continued to be maintained. The Ro ..read more

Several sections of the Anti-Sexual Harassment Act 2022 (“the Act”) have come into force from 28 March 2023. The Act, which was first tabled in Parliament in December 2021 (“Malaysia’s Anti-Sexual Harassment Bill tabled in Parliament”), passed by the Dewan Rakyat (House of Representatives) in July 2022 (“Malaysia passes Anti-Sexual Harassment Bill with very minor amendments, despite widespread criticism”), and gazetted as an Act in October 2022, provides a right of redress for any person who has been sexually harassed, the establishment of a Tribunal for Anti-Sexual Harassment, and to raise a ..read more

The past three years has been a busy, tumultuous, and very interesting period for HR and employment and industrial relations professionals in Malaysia. While 2020-21 saw employment lawyers — like most of the world — being kept occupied by the effects of the pandemic, and collectively learning on our feet, 2022 also threw lots of new issues our way, as clients adjusted to the new post-pandemic norms. In Malaysia, a hot topic in 2022 was the long-awaited amendments to the Employment Act (“EA”)(originally scheduled to come into force on 1 September 2022, but postponed to 1 January 2023). I have ..read more

In this Case Update series, I share summaries of recent Malaysian court decisions to explore the current approach taken by the courts when deciding on employment-related issues. You can find all the posts in the series by clicking here, including case updates on other legal areas by TheMalaysianLawyer co-founder Lee Shih. Malaysian employers are still coming to terms with how to properly handle sexual harassment complaints. While many employers have been introducing anti-harassment policies and processes, and organising awareness and training sessions for employees, mistakes are still oft ..read more