Ramly Ali J:

The plaintiff, Kian Lup Construction, a business entity registered under the Business Registration Act 1956, filed the present suit against the defendant, Hongkong Bank Malaysia Berhad, for libel and slander and claiming damages not less than RM3,000,000 and/or for an amount to be assessed by the court and/or in the alternative, general as well as punitive damages for breach of fiduciary duty. The plaintiff had prior to the present suit, filed a writ summons videCivil Suit No: 22-14-1996 which was struck out on preliminary issue and thereon filed a fresh suit ie, the present suit which is before the court now.

Facts Of The Case

The plaintiff, Kian Lup Construction is a business entity duly registered under the Business Registration Act 1956 and was set up in Gua Musang, Kelantan from 1995 to 1999. One Chong Won Chee (PW1) claimed to be the sole proprietor of the plaintiff. PW1 was born in Kelantan and started his construction business in Kelantan under the name of the plaintiff. PW1 has also four other companies registered in Kelantan which do not deal with construction business. PW1 come to Raub sometimes in 1995 to do construction work on Hotel Sri Raub and finished the contract in 1996 wherein all payment for this contract has been fully settled. Then in 1996, PW1 started work on a bungalow house and finished. The contract price had also been fully paid. Thereafter PW1 did not do any construction work in Raub. PW1 is known as "Aman", in Raub.

On 22 February 1995, the plaintiff opened a current account under the name of Kian Lup Construction with the defendant's Raub Branch. The current account opening form was executed and signed by PW1, (exh. P4). On 22 March 1996, the defendant's Raub Branch received the Global Closure on CUA customers report from the Bank's IT department of the Group Central Accounts Department in the Kuala Lumpur head office (exh. D5). The said CUA customers report lists out customers name, account number and ID, which has been matched by the defendant's computer system against "Bank Negara Malaysia Biro Maklumat Cek (BNM BMC)" data file contained in diskette form. This BNM BMC is based on information and data provided by all banks to Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) as to cheque irregularities by banks customers. When the CUA customers report was received by the defendant's Raub branch, which highlighted the plaintiff's account, they checked details of the account on the report. The details checked were account number, account name and business registration number as against the plaintiff's opening account documents in the account pocket. As the above details confirmed and matched with the CUA customer report, the defendant's Raub branch, as required by the BNM BMC guidelines issued the defendant's standard letter dated 22 March 1996 (exh. P2) to the plaintiff. The said letter is reproduced below:

Ref:

Kian Lup Construction

296, Kg. Baru

18300 Gua Musang, Kelantan.

22 MAR 1996

Tuan/Puan

YOUR CURRENT ACCOUNT NO: 365-125731-001

We note that your name has been reported in the Biro Maklumat Cek 'Blacklist'.

As such, as provided under the Biro Maklumat Cek Guidelines, we regret to inform you that we are required to close your account w.e.f. 8 April 1996.

Please call on us with your unused cheque book (s) on or before 8 April 1996.

If we do not hear from you by that date, we will nevertheless close your account and remit to you by Cashier's Order the balance less our charges to your last known address in our records.

Yang benar

t. t.

...

Pengurus

The above letter was issued in accordance with the requirements of BNM BMC guidelines, which requires mandatory closure of the current accounts of bad cheque offenders with all commercial banks in Malaysia in addition to the account in which the bad cheque is committed.

Once PW1 received the above letter, PW1 went to see his friend, Thian Yew Lin (PW2), to explain to PW1 the contents of the said letter. PW2, who did not know how to read English, toge