Compensation Fund - A Wider Claim?

On 30.6.2019, I wrote an article titled “Lawyers with a Heart (No Joke)”. The link is at https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/lawyers-heart-joke-choo-dee-wei

In that article, I touched on the conditions required to be fulfilled if someone was to embark to claim from the Compensation Fund. One of it being that the advocate and solicitor needed to be in a sole proprietorship.

4 years later, there has been change by virtue of the Federal Court’s decision in Majlis Peguam Malaysia v Michael Joseph Carvalho & Anor [Civil Appeal No. 02(f)-5-02/2023]. The decision is unanimous.

The issues that arise in that case concern the power of the Malaysian Bar to compensate members of the public using money from the Bar Council’s Compensation Fund for losses arising from acts of dishonesty by advocates and solicitors practicing in partnerships (as opposed to sole proprietorships).

Reference was made to the Advocates and Solicitors Compensation Fund Rules 1978 (“CFR”); wherein it was remarked that there is nothing in the CFR which states or even suggests that an application for a grant out of the Compensation Fund is restricted to losses caused by dishonest advocates and solicitors who practice as sole proprietors and not to losses caused by dishonest advocates and solicitors who practice as partners in a partnership.

After a much thorough reading of the said decision, the outcome of that decision is simply this. It makes no difference whether the advocate and solicitor is a sole proprietor or a partner. An aggrieved party can now make a claim from the Compensation Fund where there are acts of dishonesty.?

It is hoped that the public will derive a clearer resolute to their predicament.