Law 595 / Law 609 - Opinion Writing, Semester

February 2019 to June 2019, Coursework (1)

You are the senior partner of the law firm. You receive
correspondence from a client seeking legal advice on a matter.
Peruse that document and any other relevant evidence, then write an
opinion letter for that client.

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Date: 18 March 2019

Arlen Reef Zamy

Neanderthal Farm Cattles Bhd (NFC)
7, Homo Neanderthalensis Avenue, Section 7
Shah Alam
40750 Shah Alam
Selangor Darul Ehsan

To:
(Please insert name of senior partner)
Senior Partner
(Please insert the name and address of your law firm)

Dear Sir / Madam (or appropriate title for Senior Partner),

RE: GOING BEYOND CAVEMAN INSTINCT AND SAVING A SPECIES

I set up NFC 40 years ago due to concerns that the number of

Seladang (Gaur) in the wild was slowly, but surely decreasing. When I
was young, my father and his friends, took me hunting in the forests
and hills of northern Peninsular Malaysia. The prized animal we were
looking for was the magnificent Seladang. When the hunting party
successfully took down the huge beast, the injured animal was
quickly despatched in accordance with Shariah Law. There was no
photo taking for social media like todayʼs Gen-Y citizens. Instead, we
thanked the animal for sacrificing itself, for a noble feast, then
proceeded to process the carcass.

The first thing that we harvested were the internal organs. This was
used to prepare a herbal soup, and the remainder internal organs
were barbecued on wood skewers after being dry rubbed with various
spices. There was more than enough to feed our hunting party of
almost a dozen men for a few days as we camped at that site. The
rest of the carcass was processed manually and much of the meat
was dried in a smoker built from scratch, from materials found in the
surrounding forest. Once the meat was properly dessicated and had
lost most of its moisture, it was neatly packed into our knapsacks and
carried home to civilisation, to be shared with our families.

Personally, my favourite moment was the last meal, which consisted

of soup made from bones, which had fleshy bits that were difficult to
remove and odd cuts which the hunting party did not process. The
brain, cheeks and eyeballs, plus marrow, were always my favourite.
The aromatic smell of the herbs and spices used in its preparation
still lingers in my memory. No part of the Seladang was wasted.
These hunting parties were milestones for my passage into
adulthood. The adult members of the hunting party always treated
me as one of their own, with equal responsibilities for the chores
around the camp.

Over the years, as it became harder and more difficult to encounter

the Seladang in the wild, I decided to do something about it. I funded
the setting up of NFC with money I made from tech in California, after
my days at MIT. It was many years ago that I chanced onto a couple
of college dropouts, who introduced themselves as the Steve Twins.
They did not look similar at all. The one that looked Arabic was very
talkative, whilst the other one, who was clearly caucasian, was very
reserved. Anyway, they liked one of the projects that I was doing at
MIT (on coding and use of machine language in processors). They
invited me to help them build a computer from scratch that they were
assembling in their garage, plus helping them refine the code they
were writing for the operating system. They did not have any money
then, but promised to give me a share in a company they were in the
process of setting up. It was the modest dividends that I got from this
that funded NFC. I still hold that one percent till today for sentimental
reasons.

NFC worked closely with the Malaysian Government in its effort to

save the Seladang. By this time, Seladang population numbers had
dropped to worrying levels. NFC started a programme of capturing
wild Seladang and initiated a captive breeding programme. Catching
a Seladang is a real challenge. Adult bulls can weigh up to almost
1000kg, whereas females are much smaller at around 600kg. After
capturing three females, our attempt to capture mature adults bulls,
ended in failure three consecutive times. Necropsy showed that all 3
bulls died from stress myopathy. The white colour of the flesh was a
dead giveaway. We later solved this problem by capturing younger
bulls as stress apparently was less of a problem with the younger
generation.

Although successful, NFCʼs natural captive breeding did not produce

the numbers necessary to save the species. By this time, more than
70 percent of Seladang had disappeared. The population in
Peninsular was fragmented. NFCʼs genetic testing showed large
swathes of this surviving population was inbreeding. Then NFC
discovered that artificial insemination greatly improved reproduction
rates. The bulls rarely wanted to tango with their female counter
parts. This led me to wonder how did the species really reproduce in
the wild. Maybe the stress of captivity was a real barrier to creating
any mood for mating. Having a dozen of so scientists watching the
mating remotely through cameras probably did not help either.
Thankfully, for the last 20 years, we have produced sufficient
numbers to even reintroduce adults into the wild in certain
designated forests reserves.
Although NFC had nobles aims and objectives, pure conservation
work alone would not make our farm commercially sustainable. NFC
therefore carried on other commercial agricultural activities relating
to standard / conventional livestock. It was through an accident in the
early 1980s, almost 10 years after my encounter with the Steve Twins,
that NFC stumbled on its biggest discovery; the Selembu. Due to a
mislabelling of storage straws, Seladang semen was accidentally
implanted into some of our Zebu, ie Indian cattle. The end product
was the Selembu, a gaur-zebu hybrid which was both a great dairy
cattle and also a superb beef bovine.

Before long, the sale of semen from the Selembu bulls single
handedly transformed us. Eventually, it s profits fully funded the
captive breeding programme of the Seladang, an effort which is still
ongoing until this very day. NFCʼs Selembu related activities are now
the responsibility of our subsidiary for ad hoc agricultural projects,
Wink-Wink-Hood Tennent Farms Bhd (WTF), under the watchful
feminine gaze of its CEO, Aduhai Le Pain (ALP). I understand her
father was a French pastry chef who settled here after marrying her
ethnic Malay mother on one of his holiday trips to South East Asia.

On 2 January 2019, Critical Acute Pass Bhd (CAP), the parent

company of a group of companies well known for its assets in
Malaysiaʼs gambling industry, invested in NFC as part of a major
diversification exercise in preparation for the challenges of the
decade commencing 2020. The injection of capital was a very
welcomed development. The work we do is not cheap, and I always
make it a point to hire the best brains in the business for the
company. More importantly, I enjoy working with the three ‘Honoursʼ
sisters who were the majority shareholders of CAP, ie Linn, Shahi and
Qiba.

On 3 January 2019, Feed-A-Lot Agricultural Tillage Ltd (FAT)

negotiated a contract with WTF for the supply of 100 straws of
Selembu semen per month for a period of 4 months, at a price of
RM10,000 per straw, delivery to be made on the 15th day of each
month. On 15 January 2019, the first shipment of Selembu semen
was successfully made to FAT. The agreed price was about a third
lower than what we usually charged for at market rate, but ALP was
happy to go along with it as business has been a little slow since
December 2018. It must have been the fault of the Christmas Blues!

On 28 January 2019, FATʼs CEO, Hafiq Runzlin called ALP at WTF, via
FaceTime: ‘We are really happy with the product you sent. We are in a
position to make you an irresistible offer. If you can guarantee
shipment of the semen for an additional 8 months, we are willing to
pay you a rate of RM15,000 per straw from the fifth shipment
onwards. Think carefully about this offer, if I do not hear from you
objecting to this, I will assume that you are accepting this unbeatable
offer.ʼ ALP then blew a flying kiss at Hafiq and the call ended.
Worryingly, since that day, ALP has kept on referring to Hafiq as the
Dashingly Handsome Mr Runzlin.

On 29 January 2019, Bursa Malaysia released news that CAP had

purchased shares in NFC. I organised a celebratory office party which
was streamed live on Instagram later that evening. There were a lot of
congratulatory messages from regulators and industry big wigs in the
comments. The link went viral and was shared with more than one
million individuals. If you are wondering why this was the case, I
managed to get the remaining Steve Twin (sadly, the other Arab
looking one is now deceased) to make an appearance. That certainly
caused a ruckus online. Steve said he had not had such a good time
since his appearance on a reality TV show almost 10 years ago.

On 14 February 2019, ALP managed to negotiate a sale of semen to

Siq-Mim Livestock Ltd (SML) in Bangkok, Thailand. The terms of the
sale were in pari materia with WTFʼs contract with FAT, subject to the
following differences: There was to be just one shipment of 200
straws of semen. Each straw was priced at RM12,000. Delivery was to
be made to a reefer storage unit in the south of Bangkok on 1 March
2019, ‘under DDP termsʼ. This reefer facility was SMLʼs main place of
business and is registered as its business address under Thai Law.

The second and third shipments to FAT proceeded as planned on 15

February 2019 and 15 March 2019 respectively, as signed the
receipts of delivery. However, on 16 March 2019, ALP received the
following text via iMessage: ‘Wat Dis? I saw the Steve Twin video on
YouTube. Are you serious? Is it true that CAP has bought shares in
NFC? How could you do this to me ... Aduhai ... after I gave you all
those tickets to the French Film Festival of Malaysia, plus the lifetime
supply of ‘santanʼ and ‘bawangʼ which I ar ranged for
you ... ???…!!!…??? ... FAT is a company that has the highest ethical
standards. We do not condone gambling. Please do not send the
fourth shipment. This is the end of our commercial relationship.ʼ

On 17 March 2019, I received news from SML that the shipment was
stuck at customs. SML said that the semen was classed as
‘agricultural productsʼ under Thai Law and attracted a 40 percent
tariff. SML then said: ‘Please settle that tariff. Otherwise, the semen
will not be releasedʼ. At almost midnight on 17 March 2019, I came
across a news report on an obscure Thai Blog that Mr Runzlin had
intentions of running as a candidate in the upcoming Thai general
elections for a party that was not favoured by the military of that
nation. Apparently, the military managed to persuade the powers that
be, ‘to make his life as difficult as possibleʼ.

By the way, both of our contracts have the following clause: "Any
dispute, controversy or claim arising out of or relating to this contract,
or the breach, termination or invalidity thereof shall be settled by
arbitration in accordance with the AIAC Arbitration Rules at the Asian
International Arbitration Centre, Kuala Lumpur.” For your information, I
have looked at AIACʼs list of arbitrators and my preferred three
individuals are: Tuan Makmal Labis, Mdm Ratu Lututnee and Datin
Hariyya Wuja Hasnan.

So, can I win both these cases? I have a great track record in winning
everything I take part in, and I love winning.

Yours sincerely,

Arlen Reef Zamy

CEO, NFC