Businessman wins appeal over ‘lucky’ A9 car number plate

2026-03-19 - 00:40

The Court of Appeal declares Yeong Oon Kong, 73, the rightful owner of vehicle registration number ‘A9’, despite a 2019 High Court order awarding it to another individual. PUTRAJAYA: The Court of Appeal has ordered the road transport department (JPJ) to reassign a coveted vehicle registration number to a businessman, following a protracted and highly contested judicial review. Delivering the unanimous judgment of a three-member bench, Justice Lim Hock Leng declared Yeong Oon Kong to be the rightful owner of the “A9” number plate. In a unanimous ruling, the three-member bench directed the JPJ director-general and its licensed registrar — named as the third and fourth respondents in the appeal — to reassign the number to Yeong within 30 days of the court’s order. Also on the panel that heard the appeal last year were Justices Choo Kah Sing, its chairman, and Latifah Tahar. Lim said the court was applying the “second actor theory,” as set out by the Federal Court in the case of Obata-Ambak Holdings Sdn Bhd v Prema Bonanza Sdn Bhd (2024) to the facts of the present appeal. Yeong, 73, had bought a classic 1938 Fiat Ardita, for which he purchased the “A9” plate number, believing it would bring him good luck. However, the number — together with the numbers “P8” and “P9” — had been purchased and assigned in 2013 to another individual surnamed Lau. The assignment of the three registration numbers was subsequently cancelled by JPJ after a Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) investigation uncovered improprieties in their procurement. In November 2013, Lau commenced judicial review proceedings against JPJ at the Kuala Lumpur High Court, in a bid to quash the cancellation and have the three plate numbers re-registered in his name. In March 2019, the High Court allowed his application and ordered JPJ to reassign all three numbers to Lau. Dissatisfied with the High Court’s decision, JPJ appealed to the Court of Appeal. Meanwhile, in 2016, three years prior to the High Court ruling in Lau’s case, the “A9” number was assigned by JPJ to Yeong. Yeong had no prior knowledge of the judicial review proceedings brought by Lau, but, in March 2021, was allowed to intervene in JPJ’s appeal to the Court of Appeal. JPJ’s appeal was dismissed by the Court of Appeal in January 2023. The appeals court also directed that the competing claims between Yeong and Lau over the “A9” number plate be remitted to the High Court for determination. The High Court eventually held Lau to be the rightful owner. Applying the nullity principle, it ruled that because JPJ’s 2013 decision to cancel Lau’s ownership of the “A9” plate had been declared illegal and quashed, Yeong’s subsequent registration was also a nullity. As a result, Yeong brought the present appeal. On Monday, the Court of Appeal ruled that although the 2013 cancellation of Lau’s registration by the acting JPJ Selangor director (identified as the “first actor”) was later adjudged unlawful, it remained subsisting and valid when the JPJ Wangsa Maju director (the “second actor”) assigned the “A9” number to Yeong in 2016. Lim said the acting director was entitled to assume that the “A9” number was still available when assigning it to Yeong. “In instances such as the present, the application of the second actor theory preserves the reliance the public places on the JPJ register, including the appellant (Yeong) who was a third party to the cancellation decision and who was accepted as a bona fide purchaser of the registration number by the Director of JPJ Wangsa Maju in his assignment decision in 2016,” the judge said. The bench ordered JPJ to pay RM20,000 in costs to Yeong, but did not order costs against Lau. Lawyer Malik Imtiaz Sarwar, along with Loo Hsien Yang and Wong Ming Yen appeared for Yeong, while Shafee Abdullah and Magdalene Wong represented Lau. Senior federal counsel Shariah Shapiee appeared for the JPJ.