Judge Rejects Recusal Bids, Orders RM1.3M Costs Against Defendants' Lawyers

Justice Leong Wai Hong sat down to write his grounds of judgment and made something clear: he was not going to tolerate what he saw as an abuse of the courts' time. Eight defendants in a sprawling corporate fraud case had filed applications asking him to step aside, claiming he had already decided the case against them during a private chambers meeting in early June. He dismissed every one of those applications and ordered the lawyers who brought them to pay RM1.3 million in costs.

The underlying dispute is substantial. Brainlab AG, a German medical technology company, and its Hong Kong subsidiary sued a former regional sales director named S Jayaveeran, along with associates and corporate entities, alleging they had orchestrated an unauthorized device-rental scheme, breached fiduciary duties, and diverted secret profits. Among the twelve defendants named in the second suit is the law firm Messrs Thomas Philip, accused of conspiring to dissipate roughly RM10 million under the cover of legal fees—money now frozen by court order.

The recusal applications arrived nineteen days into the trial of the first suit, months before the second suit was even scheduled to begin. Jayaveeran and a former employee named Tung Chee Cheong led eight of the twelve defendants in filing nearly identical statutory declarations. All of them claimed that during the June 3 chambers meeting, Justice Leong had explicitly told their counsel that he had already made up his mind on liability. Only the question of damages remained open, they said.

But the evidence told a different story. The plaintiffs' lead counsel, Gopal Sreenevasan, pointed to a WhatsApp message Tung had sent to Jayaveeran on the very day of that chambers meeting. The message revealed something far more modest than a judicial pronouncement: the lawyers had merely formed a subjective "perception" that the judge seemed to favor the plaintiffs during routine settlement discussions. There was no explicit declaration of liability. The defendants and opposing parties, including Avro Medical and its director Jakly Cox, flatly denied the recusal claims.

In his 110-page judgment, Justice Leong traced the legal landscape carefully. He cited landmark rulings from Malaysian and Singaporean courts, including observations from the late Federal Court judge Gopal Sri Ram, to establish a clear principle: judges must not recuse themselves without cogent, realistic evidence of a genuine danger of bias. He noted, with evident frustration, that despite a substantial body of jurisprudence on this point, litigants continued to allege judicial bias on thin grounds. "A demonstrably inaccurate attribution of bias is an aggravating factor against the applicant," he wrote, "suggesting either a misunderstanding or, in the worst cases, an attempt to manufacture grounds for recusal."

What struck the judge most forcefully was the timing and the defendants' own conduct. They had actively participated in both proceedings for over two years without once objecting to his presence on the bench. Then, suddenly, in the middle of trial, they filed these applications. The pattern suggested something other than genuine concern about judicial impartiality.

The court ordered the parties to continue with remaining evidence and closing arguments in the primary suit, with the second action set to proceed later in the year. The message was unmistakable: recusal applications will not be tolerated as a tactic to delay proceedings, and lawyers who bring them on flimsy grounds will pay the price.