Starring five legal eagles and a cast of residents
PUT five senior counsel in one courtroom and you can be sure that sparks will fly.
Add personal relationships into the mix and you will get one heck of a fireworks display.
Over the past week, five legal heavyweights have been cooped up in Court 4B of the Supreme Court building, arguing over a multi-million-dollar collective sale gone wrong.
The star-studded line-up has, at times, led to fiery spats among the opposing counsel, with the presiding judge, Justice Choo Han Teck, having to step in to play peacemaker.
The case itself is interesting enough without the lawyers' witty and caustic remarks.
The Strata Titles Board (STB) rarely disallows a collective sale, but it did just that for Horizon Towers after a defective application put paid to the $500 million deal.
Now the buyer, Horizon Partners Private Limited (HPPL), a consortium led by Hotel Properties Limited, is suing the owners for up to $1 billion.
The courtroom was packed every day. At any one time, there were at least 20 lawyers from six different firms before Justice Choo and extra seats had to be wheeled in for them.
The list of lead counsel read like a Who's Who of the legal community: Mr K. Shanmugam, one of the youngest senior counsel appointed in 1998; Mr K.S. Rajah and Mr Michael Hwang, who were among the first 12 senior counsel appointed in 1997; Mr Chelva Rajah and Mr Andre Yeap.
Considering that there are only 32 senior counsel who are practising lawyers, having five in one case is rare.
Widely regarded as one of the country's top litigators, Allen & Gledhill's Mr Shanmugam, 48, appeared to be receiving the brunt of the throwaway remarks from opposing counsel which have littered the hearing.
This was not surprising, considering that his client, the buyer, is being seen as the bad guy by the other parties - the majority owners, who are being sued for up to $1 billion, and the minority owners, who do not want to sell.
Another sticking point is the relationship between Mr Shanmugam and two other senior counsel involved in the case.
Representing four minority owners is his former father-in-law, Mr K.S. Rajah.
And his ex-boss at Allen & Gledhill, Mr Hwang, acts for another minority owner.
On the first day of the hearing, Mr Shanmugam obtained permission from the court to air his client's case even though buyers are usually not heard in hearings on whether a collective sale should go through or not.
That prompted Mr K.S. Rajah to comment that 'all and sundry' should not be allowed to 'do this and that'.
Mr Shanmugam shot back: 'Firstly, I am not all and sundry. Next, I'm not doing this and that. I've a graver interest in the matter than he does.'
On another day, Mr Shanmugam claimed that Mr K.S. Rajah and his clients were engaging in delaying tactics.
Mr K.S. Rajah retorted: 'I hate to interrupt my learned friend in full flight, in all his investigative work. But what has all this got to do with the appeal?'
The 77-year-old later added: 'While we are all here talking about the appeal, all my learned friend is concerned with is HPPL's case.'
Mr Hwang was no less cutting to Mr Shanmugam. The two had worked together in Allen & Gledhill for many years until Mr Hwang, now 63, left in 2003 after 34 years at the firm.
Now running his own firm, Mr Hwang has moved on to focus on arbitration work. But the talk then was that Allen & Gledhill was not big enough for both of them.
In court, Mr Hwang said Mr Shanmugam had 'overstayed his welcome' in the hearing by giving a 'shopping list' of what the court should order.
Not taking this lying down, Mr Shanmugam later said that Mr Hwang was 'fully capable' of conjuring up an argument in 'his silken ways'.
'And I meant that as a compliment,' he added as an aside.
Mr Hwang shrugged off those comments and, after a while, got up to leave. This prompted Mr Shanmugam to quip: 'See? Mr Michael Hwang is leaving. He must be upset by my insults.'
When Mr Shanmugam asked to be allowed to speak after Mr Chelva Rajah on Wednesday, Mr Hwang was the first to object, followed by Mr K.S. Rajah.
Mr Hwang felt Mr Shanmugam should not get a 'second bite of the cherry'.
If Mr Shanmugam got another go, he said, then all the other lawyers should also be given another chance to respond as well.
And even when Justice Choo gave the lawyers two options for how they wanted to respond - either each would get five minutes more time to talk or would respond in writing - the two men could not see eye to eye.
Mr Hwang wanted written submissions; Mr Shanmugam wanted to do it orally. The former won this round because he had the other lawyers on his side.
But despite the excellent show put on by the lawyers, the lead actors in this matter were really the 210 occupants of Horizon Towers.
Every day, at least 50 of them would fill up the public gallery at the back of the court.
On the first day, there were more residents who turned up than seats and some were not allowed in. Many of them turned up on all four days, staying right through the proceedings. And they did not sit impassively.
Once, when Mr Shanmugam was about to interject, Justice Choo stopped him before he could start, leading to mutterings from the crowd: 'Yes, sit down!'
Mr Shanmugam then asked the judge to remind the public gallery that 'this is not a circus'.
There were also audible sneers from the crowd when Mr Shanmugam declared that his client was 'not in the business of suing'.
Each time a decision went against Mr Shanmugam, they would cheer and hushed exclamations of 'Yes!' would ring out.
One resident who did not sign the en bloc agreement said it was not personal.
'Our 'cheers' during the hearing are the reaction of the average layman who feel they have been wrongly pushed into a corner by a large corporation,' he said.
Instead of making $2.3 million to $4 million each from the en bloc sale, Horizon Towers occupants may have to pay out double that amount if the buyer wins the lawsuit.
But a housewife, who sat through all four days of hearings, said she enjoyed the face-off and witty exchanges between the senior lawyers.
'We are glad we have so many other senior counsel facing Mr Shanmugam as we have heard how good he is,' she said.
'Can you imagine a young lawyer doing it? He would have been slaughtered.'
But now, the time for theatrics is over.
The lawyers have had their say in court and it is now down to the judge to make a cool decision.
And he is unlikely to decide this based on which lawyer produced better theatre.
For those who have been entertained, the issue is this: Did it matter that the application to the STB did not contain the signatures of three majority owners when even without them, the minimum 80 per cent of residents' approval had been obtained?
The Horizon Towers finale will be staged early this week. Watch for the reviews.
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