JUDGMENT

Lord Brightman:

The issue on this appeal is whether the Federal Court of Malaysia was entitled to reverse the decision of the trial Judge on a question of fact, thereby rejecting the evidence of two witnesses who were accepted by the trial Judge as witnesses of truth. The question of fact was whether the purchaser of shop premises in 1954 (to be more precise, his family company in whose name the purchase was taken) became the beneficial owner thereof in accordance with the ostensible title; or whether the purchaser constituted himself or his family company a trustee for the benefit of himself and his two business associates and the trading company which was formed to take over their business activities. The purchaser died five years after the purchase was made. Thirteen years later the younger of the two surviving business associates, who or whose family had come to own the trading company, with the assistance of the evidence of his former partner, claimed that a trust had been created at the time of the purchase. They gave evidence to the trial Judge of an orally constituted trust. Such evidence was admittedly totally inconsistent with the documentary evidence of a circum