Amendment applications must be timely, made in good faith, and not change the suit's character; delays can prejudice the respondent and undermine procedural fairness.

Introduction

[1] The Malay proverb says "kerana pulut santan binasa sebab mulut badan binasa" which means careless statements could lead to negative implications. You cannot take back what you have said. Horace once said, "Think twice before you speak".

[2] This appeal involves three appellants (Tan Soo Yong, Lee Cha Jun, and Lee Hui Juan) and one respondent (One Realty Marketing Sdn Bhd). The appellants are challenging the Sessions Court Judge (SCJ)'s decision to dismiss their Amendment Application.

[3] This appeal is the second round since the learned SCJ dismissed the appellants' application to amend, and this Court had also concurred with the SCJ's decision. Now, the appellants make this third round of appeal to the Court of Appeal, where it is not permitted to under the established laws set out in Kempadang Bersatu Sdn Bhd v. Perkayuan OKS No 2 Sdn Bhd ; [2019] 4 CLJ 131 FC and endorsed by the Federal Court in Asia Pacific Higher Learning Sdn Bhd (Registered Owner And Licensee Of The Higher Learning Institution Lincoln University College) v. Majlis Perubatan Malaysia & Anor ; [2020] 2 MLJ 1 ; [2020] 2 AMR 517 FC . The decision of this Court in dismissing the appeal on the decision of the SCJ to dismiss their Amendment Application is not appealable as stipulated in s 3 of the Courts of Judicature Act 1964 (CJA 1964) since the decision made was not made after a finality of the action therein.

[4] On this score alone, I find the appellants cannot make a further appeal to the Court of Appeal. Regardless, I still put out my reasons for dismissing the appeal as follows.

[5] This appeal concerns the appellants' application to amend their pleadings midway through the cross-examination of the third appellant. All of the appellants had the same witness statements, questions, and answers. Only the third appellant had a longer answer to the same questions posed previously to the others.

[6] The appellants awoke when the respondent's counsel suggested that his answer was not pleaded. At that time, they felt they needed to amend their Statement of Claim (SOC) to include all the facts they thought were material. Essentially, they wanted to clarify and explain further the details of the monetary amount they claimed. They tried to insert a table showing the breakdowns for each project, for which each appellant is entitled to the respective fees.

[7] Now, the appellants felt the need to change the word "commission" to "fee" as seen in their proposed amendments at page. 62 (reproduced here). Since the dispute is about interpreting the clauses of the Appointment Agreement, it does not need to be amended. The respondent was not confused when making their defence, the respondent referred to the specific clauses, like cl 4, to show that the words fee, incentive and overriding incentives were stated. All those definitions would be in the trial proper and are of no concern to this appeal herein.

[8].....

[9] The other word the appellants intend to change is to drop the word "clients" from the words "Defendant's clients". That would mean the appellants now claim they are entitled to be paid the fees from the respondent, not the respondent's clients. That is also from the Appointment Agreement, which the parties had fully ventilated during the trial.

[10] Coming to the merits of the Amendment Application, to see if the appellants are amending to change the suit to a new character. Three parts of the proposed amendments, namely (1) to insert further and better particulars on the derivation of