JUDGMENT

Thomson LP:

This is an appeal by the defendant in an action in which the plaintiff successfully sued for damages for malicious prosecution.

The facts of the case are by no means clear but would appear to be as follows.

The defendant and his brother were shareholders (the defendant has always said the only shareholders) in K Ismail Ghaney Rawther & Co. Ltd, a limited liability company carrying on business in Kuala Lumpur. Differences arose between the brothers and in 1959 the defendant commenced proceedings which were opposed by his brother for the compulsory winding-up of the company. Then in January or February, 1960, the present plaintiff took steps to be joined as a party on the ground that he was a shareholder in the company and he opposed the petition.

On this the defendant took up the attitude that the plaintiff was not a shareholder and that a share certificate on which he relied was not genuine and on 6 February 1960, he swore an affidavit and filed it in the winding-up proceedings. That affidavit has not been produced in evidence in the present proceedings and whether it contained any allegation of actual forgery it is impossible to say. The nature of some of i