TRIBUNAL Tuntutan Pengguna Malaysia (TTPM) or the Tribunal for Consumer Claims, should not allow any businesses, let alone big ones, to make a mockery of the tribunal system. 

When businesses who have the advantage of having in-house lawyers or other professionals and experts take advantage of the TTPM’s simple procedures to knock out man-in-the-street consumers who have filed claims against them, the TTPM should throw the book at them.

Instead, the TTPM gives them face by entertaining their unethical, deceitful representations to support their acts and omissions.

This is a very sad state of affairs as it only encourages further erosion of business ethics.   

In a recent case in Penang, the defendant (a big car dealer) did not file Borang 2 (defence).

The tribunal gave judgment in default, but did so in Borang 8 (award for claimant where respondent is absent) when in fact it should have been in Borang 5 (award for claimant where respondent did not file statement of defence). Why?

A few days after the Borang 8 award was made, the respondent quickly filed Borang 12 (application for setting aside award) and together with it filed Borang 2 (statement of defence and counter claim).

The excuse for being absent at the hearing was:

·        Did not receive notice of hearing (Borang 4)

The reason for not filing statement of defence (Borang 2) was:

·        Refer attachment - Pos Laju Tracking: the notice was sent to the wrong address, refer attachment.

The attachment was a printout of the tracking that does not show the address to which the letter is sent.

It showed the movement of registered letter No. RD187211391 from the post office of posting to delivery office “Mutiara” and confirmation of delivery. 

The alert consumer felt this sounded very strange. If the registered letter from the TTPM was delivered to the wrong address, how did the car company know its tracking number?

So he did a search at “Mutiara” which is the name given to the Pos Laju delivery centre, Penang.

It showed the letter was received by a person named “Z…...” together with her MyKad number. He then called the company to enquire about “Z…..” and she was an employee of the company.

He then prepared a simple affidavit stating that the excuse and reason given by the car company in Borang 12 were not true, supported by the search result.

On the hearing date, this was given to the tribunal president who questioned the car company representative.

Caught with pants down, they admitted the statements in Borang 12 were not true and tried to wriggle their way out by saying they were absent as they (four of them) had to be at another place.

The president rightly told them that anyone else from the company could have come.

What’s most regretful is that the president still accepted the Borang 12 (with lies in it) and set aside the award.

The giving of face to the car company that had lied to the tribunal is open encouragement to them to repeat this “strategy” in future cases and a bad precedent for others to follow.

The tribunal is part of the enforcement mechanism and is there to raise ethical standards in business which according to the Ministry of Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs is very low.

A study in 2014 showed that good business ethics was just 5%.

In other words, 95% of business in Malaysia is not done ethically. This despite the ministry having published a Code of Business Ethics - Malaysia in 2007.

There is a moral duty on the tribunal to help create an ethical business community. But regretfully, the tribunal is unwittingly helping to lower business ethics as it has no heart to be firm with business people who appear before it with dirty hands.

The tribunal, having discovered that Borang 12 contained lies, should have rejected it outright as the defendant car company had come before it with dirty hands and contemptuously and had thus forfeited any right it had to apply to set aside the award.

This speaks of the integrity and standards of the tribunal.  

Such bending backwards by the tribunal, even issuing the award in Borang 8 instead of Borang 5 in the first instance, to accommodate the whims of unethical businesses, is most regrettable and suggests bias towards businesses, it is time the tribunal gets firm on recalcitrant businesses and throws the book at them to raise the standard of business ethics and earn the respect of consumers. – December 26, 2019.

* Ravinder Singh reads The Malaysian Insight.

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.