The court determined that the duty of care was not established due to no evidence of a direct contractual relationship affecting the tort claim.

[1] This is an appeal against the decision of the High Court at Shah Alam delivered on 8 December 2015. The High Court had allowed the respondent's claims for the torts of negligence and defamation with a global award of general damages to be assessed by the Registrar. Further, the appellant was ordered to publish a public apology in a local newspaper. Parties have, however, agreed to stay the execution of the judgment pending the outcome of this appeal.

[2] This appeal was heard on 15 July 2016. After hearing the parties and taking into consideration the written submissions, we had decided to allow the appeal and set aside the order of the High Court. Our reasons for doing so now follow. For convenience, the parties will be referred to as they were in the High Court.

Salient Facts

[3] The salient facts giving rise to the civil suit and as summarised by the learned trial judge can be stated as follows. The plaintiff, a small medium enterprise ("SME"), obtained a loan from Maybank in 2004 under a Corporate Guarantee Corporation Direct Access Guarantee Scheme ("DAGS"). Under this scheme, the defendant provided the guarantee cover needed to enable the plaintiff to obtain the loan from Maybank.

[4] By way of a Facility Agreement dated 12 October 2004 between the plaintiff and Maybank ("1st Agreement"), the plaintiff was given a loan facility of RM350,000.00 in overdraft and RM340,000.00 in various combined trade lines. The corporate guarantee known as DAGS was provided by the defendant.

[5] Subsequently, a second Facility Agreement dated 29 December 2005 was entered between the plaintiff and Maybank ("2nd Agreement") when the plaintiff received an increased loan facility from RM350,000.00 to RM1 million. This loan facility was secured by a fixed deposit collateral in the sum of RM610,000.00.

[6] On 28 October 2010, the outstanding loan of RM2 million to Maybank was subrogated to the defendant. The plaintiff had applied for the upliftment of its fixed deposit. This was rejected by the defendant. Instead, the defendant liquidated the fixed deposit, which was a collateral to the loan, to reduce the loan amount to RM1,436,481.31.

[7] This loan amount of RM1,436,481.31 was later restructured and a scheme of payment was agreed upon between the defendant and the plaintiff sometime in September 2011. By this scheme, the plaintiff was to pay RM20,000.00 per month to the defendant.

[8] Meanwhile, the plaintiff attempted to obtain loans from other financial institutions. These applications were all rejected. The plaintiff made a search on 3 December 2010 at the Bank Negara Malaysia Central Credit Reference Information System ("BNM CCRIS") and discovered that the plaintiff had been wrongly reported as owing RM11,102,013.00 to the defendant.

[9] By a letter dated 10 January 2011, the defendant was informed of the misreporting. The defendant, it was contended, did not act promptly to rectify the erroneous fact.

[10] It was contended by the plaintiff that as a result of the adverse BNM CCRIS report, the plaintiff had suffered losses/damage in the form of loss of profits, lost business opportunity and its goodwill amongst its suppliers and business parties. The plaintiff then filed the present civil suit against the defendant on 29 August 2012.

At The High Court

[11] At the High Court, it appeared that three causes of action were pursued by the plaintiff against the defendant. These can be shortly stated as follows:

(a) Negligence in the conduct of the plaintiff's loan facility;

(b) Defamation where the defendant had wrongly reported the status of the plaintiff's loan facility to the BNM CCRIS which misreporti