SYNOPSIS

The world in 2020 has been an eventful one with the disease caused by the strand of virus called Coronavirus which was later named by the World Health Organisation ("WHO") as Covid-19 (short for Coronavirus Disease 2019). The impacts and effects of Covid-19 have been such that the WHO has "upgraded" the disease to a pandemic.  Governments throughout the world have implemented various measures to combat and to contain the spread of the disease and in the process these have caused certain degree of economic and commercial dislocation.  Malaysia is no exception.  But the measures taken and implemented had inevitably caused disruptions and even given rise to impossibility for contractual obligations to be performed.  After much expectation, the Temporary Measures for Reducing the Impact of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (Covid-19) Act 2020 (“the Act”) was passed by both houses of Parliament (Dewan Rakyat and Dewan Negara) and came into effect on 23 October 2020.  The talk will focus on the key provisions of the Act, with focus on how the inability to perform contractual obligations, and the enforcement of corresponding rights, due to the measures taken to combat Covid-19 are dealt with in the Act.


BIODATA OF SPEAKER

Ir. Oon Chee Kheng graduated with a civil engineering degree from the University of New South Wales, an LLB from the University of London and an MBA from Edinburgh Business School. He is a Fellow of The Institution of Engineers, Malaysia (IEM), a Fellow of both Chartered Institute of Arbitrators and Malaysian Institute of Arbitrators and is a registered professional engineer (civil) with the Board of Engineers, Malaysia. He has also been commissioned by IEM to produce the second edition of IEM Conditions of Contract for Civil Engineering Works.  He was a former Vice President of IEM, Chairman of both IEM Sub-Committees on Engineering Contracts and Dispute Resolution Practice and Deputy Chairman of Bar Council's Construction Law Committee.  He has published widely and is the co-author of the text Adjudication of Construction Payment Disputes in Malaysia (2014).