DATO' MARY LIM THIAM SUAN J

A tale of two banks

First, there were two banks. Then, there was one. Over the course of some ten odd years, the 1st Defendant entered into arrangements for various banking facilities with the two banks at different points in time. The 2nd to the 9th Defendants stood as guarantors of the various banking facilities. The first set of banking facilities will be referred to as "the DCB facilities" while the second set will be referred to as "the BU facilities".

The single bank now claims for all the banking facilities that the 1st Defendant took with the two banks. The challenge faced by the parties and the Court here is to unravel all those arrangements before the respective Defendants' liabilities, if any, can be determined. These are material facts.

The first bank - the DCB Facilities Between 1994 and 1995, the 1 Defendant was granted various banking facilities by the first bank; then known as "Development & Commercial Bank Berhad" [D & C Bank]. The first can be found in a letter of offer dated 4.2.1994 [1st letter of offer] and a facility agreement dated 12.7.1994 [1st facility agreement]. Inter alia, it included an overdraft of RM1.15 million and a letter o