JUDGMENT

Khadijah Idris JC:

(Encl 7 And Encl 13)

A. Introduction

[1] The plaintiff claims that the 1st defendant, 2nd defendant and 3rd defendant have, pursuant to acts and omissions on their part, breached among others, the fiduciary duties owed to the plaintiff in relation to the plaintiff's accounts maintained with the 1st defendant. As a result of the breach, there were unauthorised transactions and wrongful disclosure of the plaintiff's accounts to unauthorised person. This has resulted in the plaintiff being charged with criminal offences which have caused the plaintiff to suffer, among others, emotional distress, loss of reputation, severe embarrassment and deprived him of his personal liberty and his lawful position in the Malaysian political setting. Thus the plaintiff claims against all the defendants special, general, aggravated and/or exemplary damages.

[2] The defendants filed their respective applications to strike out the plaintiff's Writ and Statement of Claim:

(a) Enclosure 7 by the 3rd defendant under and/ or inherent jurisdiction of the Court. Enclosure 7 was filed before the expiry of the dateline for the 3rd defendant to file defence. This Court allowed prayer 2 granting a stay of the filing of the 3rd defendant's defence pending the disposal of encl 7; and

(b) Enclosure 13 by the 1st defendant and 2nd defendant under O 18 r 19(1)(a) and/or (b) and/or (d) of the ROC 2012 and/or inherent jurisdiction of the Court.

[3] After a lengthy hearing, this Court allowed encls 7 and 13 with costs. The plaintiff appealed against the said decision. The reasons set out below are in respect of both encls 7 and 13.

B. Parties

[4] The plaintiff, Dato' Sri Mohd Najib Abdul Razak is an individual and a Malaysian citizen. The plaintiff was the former Prime Minister of the country.

[5] The 1st defendant, AmBank Islamic Bank Berhad, formerly known as AmIslamic Bank Berhad is a duly licensed financial institution. The 1 st defendant is a fully owned subsidiary of the 2nd defendant.

[6] The 2nd defendant, AMMB Holdings Berhad is a company registered in Malaysia. The 2nd defendant is the holding company of the 1st defendant.

[7] The 3rd defendant, Joanna Yu Ging Ping, was employed by the 1st defendant. At all material time the 3rd defendant was the Relationship Manager over the plaintiff's accounts held in the 1st defendant bank.

[8] The 1st, 2nd and 3rd defendants are hereinafter collectively referred to as "the 1st to 3rd defendants".

C. Parties' Pleaded Case

C1. The Plaintiff's Case Against The 1st And 2nd Defendants

[9] The plaintiff pleads the 1st defendant and 2nd defendant are both part of the AmBank Group of companies which holds out and operates its entire banking and related businesses as a singular corporation and/or business unit identified collectively as 'AmBank'. By reason of AmBank being a singular corporation and/or business unit, it is contended that all acts and omissions attributable to the 1st defendant are by law attributable to the 2nd defendant and the 2nd defendant is separately, jointly and/or collectively liable for all contractual and/or common law and/or other liabilities as a result thereof.

[10] By reason of the above, the plaintiff uses the term 'AmBank' in the Statement of claim to mean the 1st defendant, 2nd defendant and/or the AmBank Group to comprise individual and collective acts, omissions and liabilities attributable to the 1st defendant and/or 2nd defendant. As this part of the judgment is intended to set out the plaintiffs pleaded case, the term AmBank used is to give effect to the Statement of Claim and not to be construed as to concede to the plaintiff's contention stated in para 9 above.

[11] The plaintiff had maintained the following four current accounts with the 1st defendant:

(a) AmIslamic Current Account No 211-202-200969-4 ("Account No 694");

(b) AmIslamic Current Account No 211-202-201188-0 ("Account No 880");

(c) AmIslamic Current Account No 211-202-201189-8 ("Account No 898"); and

(d) AmIslamic Curr