Majority owners of Horizon Towers get their day in court
IN CONTRAST to the thunder and fury of the past few days, the legal dispute surrounding the botched Horizon Towers en bloc sale ended on a muted note yesterday —less than 45 minutes after it started in the High Court.
Nevertheless, it was a day the packed courtroom — comprising mainly the condo's residents — relished, going by their obvious delight when Senior Counsel K Shanmugam, who represents the prospective buyers, was repeatedly denied the chance to address the court.
The majority owners are appealing against the Strata Titles Board's decision to abort the proposed $500-million deal on technical irregularities — three pages containing the signatures of three majority owners were missing from the documents.
Yesterday, the majority owners' lawyer, Senior Counsel Chelva Rajah, was finally given the chance to respond to points raised by the lawyers for the minority owners, who hope to sink the deal for good.
But before the hearing began, Mr Shanmugam asked Justice Choo Han Teck for permission to speak after Mr Rajah. Justice Choo's response that he would decide after listening to Mr Rajah drew cheers from the gallery.
Mr Rajah reiterated that the sale order application was "not invalid", since two of the missing pages were actually tendered to the STB in a separate bundle, while the third page was submitted before the board's hearing ended.
While lawyers for the minority owners had argued that the latest changes to the law for en bloc sales, which empower the STB to disregard technical or procedural irregularities, meant it lacked this authority previously, Mr Rajah argued otherwise.
He said: "The fact that Parliament is putting up the Bill doesn't mean it had a change of mind. It's far more likely that Parliament all along intended the board to have the power."
In his written submission, he said that even without the three signatures, the consent level for the sale was 82.51 per cent — above the required 80 per cent.
As soon as Mr Rajah was done, Mr Shanmugam, who is also a Member of Parliament, requested to take the judge through parliamentary reports to show that the legislative amendments "in fact show Parliament's true intentions". He also wanted to highlight an earlier court case to illustrate the STB's jurisdiction to amend applications.
But Senior Counsel Michael Hwang, who was representing a minority owner, objected to this "second bite of the cherry". If the judge allowed Mr Shanmugam's request, said Mr Hwang, the other lawyers had to be given the chance to respond as well.
Justice Choo gave them the choice of either "five minutes" each to address the court again or to respond in writing to a written submission of Mr Shanmugam's additional points.
While Mr Shanmugam wanted the first option, Mr Hwang chose the second and the other four lawyers present agreed with him. The judge went with the majority and gasps of "yes" were heard from the gallery.
Justice Choo is expected to give his ruling next week.
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