KOTA KINABALU: The Court of Appeal today allowed an appeal by former deputy chief minister Datuk Christina Liew and one other person over a land suit.
The court also ordered the case to be remitted to the High Court for retrial.
Liew and Samsuri Baharuddin appealed against the Tawau High Court decision on Sept 30, 2014, which ordered three people to pay damages to Borneo Samudera Sdn Bhd (BSSB) for unlawfully inducing the Bagahak Smallholders Scheme participants to breach their Joint Venture Agreement (JVA) with BSSB.
Samsuri was the attorney for a group of 819 smallholders in the Bagahak smallholders' scheme.
Delivering the decision during virtual proceedings, a three-member panel unanimously said: "We find there is merit in this appeal. The appeal is allowed. The decision of the High Court judge dated Sept 30, 2014, is set aside and we order the matter to be remitted to the High Court for retrial after the determination of the arbitration."
The Court of Appeal in its grounds of decision said, among other things, that the judgment of the trial judge was null and void.
"It was a nullity because the trial judge should not have proceeded with the trial. There was supposed to have been an arbitration to decide on the validity of the JVA entered into between the Bagahak Scheme smallholders and BSSB," Liew said in a statement.
She said BSSB had applied for the dispute between the parties in the High Court suit to be arbitrated in accordance with the terms of the JVA.
She added that Datuk Seri Gopal Sri Ram, sitting in the Court of Appeal, had in 2008 ordered that the High Court suit be stayed in favour of arbitration.
"In addition to the Court of Appeal's ruling that the trial judge's decision was a nullity, it also ordered that there be a retrial in Tawau.
"But this can only take place after the arbitration tribunal has decided on the enforceability of the JVA," she said.
In 2014, The Tawau High Court in its judgment found that BSSB had proven the requisite conditions in law of inducement of breach of contract.
The court decided that Liew and Samsuri were liable for inducing the smallholders of the Bagahak Scheme to breach the joint venture agreement entered into between the smallholders and BSSB.
In the suit, BSSB as the plaintiff had claimed damages of RM557,641,716.29.
The Tawau High Court, however, did not order RM557 million damages against Liew in its decision on the case commenced by BSSB, but merely ordered BSSB's claim for damages to be assessed by the Deputy Registrar.
The Court of Appeal judges who sat today were Datuk Mohamad Zabidin Mohd Diah, Datuk Lee Heng Cheong and Datuk Wira Ahmad Nasfy Yasin.
Counsels Datuk Malik Imtiaz Sarwar, Datuk Alex Decena and Jordan Kong represented Liew and Samsuri while counsels Jeyan Marimuttu and Jimmy Chang appeared for BSSB.