Case commentaries
| DOI | 10.1177/1365712716675690 |
| Date | 01 January 2017 |
| Published date | 01 January 2017 |
| Author | Jeremy Gans |
| Subject Matter | Case commentaries |
Case commentaries
Jeremy Gans
Melbourne Law School, University of Melbourne, Australia
Case management—Malaysia
After year 2002, when Melawangi Sdn Bhd took over as Manager, the deficit grew by leaps and bounds. It is
also strange that they did not make any attempt to the deficit with owners [who have direct interest in the
property] and ATCOTA—even though owners have requested it many times to meet them.
The above sentence was included in a letter published by the defendant in a defamation action, Yeo Ing
Kim, who described himself as the Chairman of ATCOTA (the Amcorp Trade Centre Owners & Tenant
Association). The plaintiff, Melawangi Sdn Bhd, is a subsidiary of investment holding company Amcorp
Group Berhad and a member of the Joint Management Committee that managed and maintained the
Amcorp Trade Centre.
Before the trial, the plaintiff placed the letter (and two other documents written by the defendant that
the plaintiff also alleged defamed it), in ‘Part A’ of the bundle of documents referred to in the following
rule of court:
Pre-trial case management when directed by the Court (O. 34, r. 2)
2(2) At a pre-trial case management, the Court may consider any matter including the possibility of settle-
ment of all or any of the issues in the action or proceedings and require the parties to furnish the Court
with such information as it thinks fit, and the appropriate orders and directions that should be made to
secure the just, expeditious and economical disposal of the action or proceedings, including— ...
(c) the period within which the parties are to file a bundle of all documents that will be relied on or
referred to in the course of the trial by any party, including documents referred to in the witness
statement of a witness;
(d) the contents of the bundle of the documents referred to in subparagraph (c) shall be agreed on
between all parties as far as possible and this bundle of agreed documents shall be filed by the
plaintiff and marked as Part A;
(e) if the parties are unable to agree on certain documents, those documents on which agreement
cannot be reached shall be included in separate bundles and each such bundle shall be filed by the
plaintiff and marked as follows:
i. Part B—documents where the authenticity is not disputed but the contents are disputed;
ii. Part C—documents where the authenticity and contents are disputed ...
At the conclusion of the trial, the defendant argued that because the defamatory material was in the
‘bundle of agreed documents’, the court must treat the claims in that material as true and accordingly
Corresponding author:
Jeremy Gans, Melbourne Law School, University of Melbourne, 185 Pelham Street, Carlton, Melbourne, Victoria 3052, Australia.
E-mail: jeremy.gans@unimelb.edu.au
The International Journalof
Evidence & Proof
2017, Vol. 21(1-2) 169–176
ªThe Author(s) 2016
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DOI: 10.1177/1365712716675690
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