where the balance of convenience, or more accurately the balance of justice, lies, and if interim relief is warranted, the proper scope, duration and terms of that relief at the ex parte stage. D. GOVERNING LAW AND FRAMEWORK [15] The jurisdiction to grant an interlocutory injunction is conferred by Order 29 rule 1 of the Rules of Court 2012. Rule 1(2) permits an application to be made ex parte where the case is one of urgency, supported by affidavit. Rule 1(2A) prescribes the matters which the supporting affidavit must contain, including the facts giving rise to the claim and to the application, the reasons why the application is made ex parte, and a clear and concise statement of all facts material to the exercise of the discretion, thereby giving effect to the applicant's duty of full and frank disclosure. Two further features of the rule bear directly on the shape of any order made ex parte: by rule 1(2B), an ex parte injunction lapses automatically at the end of twenty-one days from the date it is granted; and by rule 1(2BA), the Court is to fix a date for the inter partes hearing of the application within fourteen days from the date of the order. The scheme of the rule thus treats ex parte relief as strictly provisional and of short duration. [16] The principles governing the exercise of the discretion are settled. The starting point is American Cyanamid Co v Ethicon Ltd [1975] AC 396 (HL): the Court does not at the interlocutory stage try the merits, but asks whether there is a serious question to be tried, whether damages would be an adequate remedy, and where the balance of convenience lies. In Malaysia, the approach was authoritatively restated in Keet Gerald Francis Noel John v Mohd Noor bin Abdullah & Ors [1995] 1 MLJ 193 (CA), which requires the judge to ask, first, whether the totality of the facts presented discloses bona fide serious issues to be tried; secondly, where such issues exist, to weigh the harm the injunction would produce against the harm flowing from its refusal, including the adequacy of damages on either side; and thirdly, to have regard to all relevant discretionary considerations, bearing in mind at all times that the remedy is discretionary and that any findings made at this stage are provisional and are not findings on the merits. Both lines of authority are reflected in the materials before the Court: American Cyanamid was referred to and applied in the Federal Court's decision in Petrodar Operating Co Ltd v Nam Fatt Corp Bhd (in liquidation) & Anor [2014] 6 MLJ 189, and Keet Gerald is set out and applied in Jakob Renner & Ors v Scott King, Chairman of Board of Directors of the International School of Kuala Lumpur & Ors [2000] 5 MLJ 254, both of which appear in the bundle of authorities placed before the Court (Enclosure 7). [17] It is convenient first to identify the jurisdiction invoked at this stage: the jurisdiction of this Court to grant an ad interim injunction to maintain the status quo pending the hearing and disposal of the injunction application inter partes. That jurisdiction is well settled. In Petrodar Operating Co Ltd v Nam Fatt Corp Bhd (in liquidation) & Anor [2014] 6 MLJ 189, the Federal Court held, at paragraph [25], that it is the standard practice of our courts, after the grant of an ad interim injunction pending the inter partes hearing, to move on to the hearing of the inter partes injunction, at which the parties will ventilate all issues and their respective contentions. The Federal Court adopted the observations of Abdul Hamid bin Mohamed JCA (as he then was) in RIH Services (M) Sdn Bhd v Tanjung Tuan Hotel Sdn Bhd [2002] 3 MLJ 1; [2002] 2 AMR 2457 that an ad interim injunction to maintain the status quo pending the inter partes hearing is quite often agreed between the parties, and that even where the parties do not agree the court has the jurisdiction to make such an order. In the interest of the smooth and expeditious administration of justice, the parties are to move expeditiously to the inter partes hearing on the merits, and the orders granted in this application are framed accordingly. [18] To like effect is the decision of the High Court in Jakob Renner & Ors v Scott King, Chairman of Board of Directors of the International School of Kuala Lumpur & Ors [2000] 5 MLJ 254, in which Low Hop Bing J held that it is within the jurisdiction of our superior courts to grant an ad interim injunction pending the disposal of an application for an interlocutory injunction, a view in line with the powers of the High Court under section 25 of the Courts of Judicature Act 1964 and the additional powers under paragraph 6 of the Schedule to that Act, which include the power to grant an injunction in any manner whatsoever. The relief granted on Enclosure 2 is of precisely that provisional character: it determines no rights finally, but seeks to preserve the existing position until the application is heard inter partes. [19] The statutory context in which those principles fall to be applied is supplied, first, by the Companies Act 2016. The first is Part III, Division 8, Subdivision 2 of the Companies Act 2016, which establishes judicial management as a corporate rescue mechanism. Sections 404 and 405 identify the conditions upon which a judicial management order may be sought and made, the object of the scheme being the survival of the company, or the whole or part of its undertaking, as a going concern, or the more advantageous realisation of its assets than would be effected on a winding up. Section 410 provides that a moratorium takes effect upon the filing of the application for a judicial management order and continues until the application is disposed of. Section 411 spells out the consequences following the making of a judicial management order: during its currency, among other things, no proceedings and no execution or other legal process may be commenced or continued against the company or its property, and no steps may be taken to enforce security over its property, except with the consent of the judicial manager or leave of the Court. Completing the statutory picture is section 414(7) of the Companies Act 2016, which deals expressly with essential supplies, including electricity, after the making of a judicial management order: the supplier may make it a condition of the giving of the supply that the judicial manager personally guarantees payment of the charges for supply given after his appointment, but shall not make it a condition of the giving of the supply, or do anything which has that effect, that outstanding charges in respect of supply given to the company before the making of the order are paid. No judicial management order has yet been made and section 414(7) is therefore not directly engaged; but the legislative policy it embodies protection of the supplier for new supply, without leverage of old arrears against the continuation of an essential service forms part of the statutory context within which the present questions arise. [20] The Applicant further relies on the decision of the Court of Appeal in Boulevard Plaza Sdn Bhd (appointed receiver and manager) v Gas District Cooling (Putrajaya) Sdn Bhd and another appeal [2021] 1 MLJ 391. The case concerned the supply of chilled water to a building under receivership and the construction of section 392(6) and (7) of the Companies Act 2016, the receivership analogue of section 414(7). Adopting the purposive approach mandated by section 17A of the Interpretation Acts 1948 and 1967, the Court of Appeal held that the word 'including' in section 392(6) is a term of extension, so that the enumeration of supplies is not exhaustive; that chilled water, being an essential supply under the monopolistic control of the supplier, fell within the category of 'supplies'; and that the supplier could not insist upon payment of pre-receivership arrears as a condition of continued supply so long as the new charges incurred during the receivership were paid. The Court of Appeal also reproduced the recommendation of the Corporate Law Reform Committee underlying these provisions, to the effect that utility suppliers with monopolistic control Tenaga Nasional Berhad being expressly named should be obliged to continue to provide supplies to a company in respect of which a judicial management order has been made so long as the new debts incurred are paid. Boulevard Plaza does not decide the question that arises here, which concerns the period of the moratorium under section 410 before any judicial management order is made; but its reasoning bears directly upon that question, and it will fall for full consideration at the inter partes stage. [21] The second is the Electricity Supply Act 1990 and the Licensee Supply Regulations 1990, under which the Respondent, as licensee, supplies electricity and is entitled, subject to the statutory framework governing electricity supply and disconnection, to recover payment for that supply. It is not in dispute that the Respondent is the licensed supplier and that the statutory scheme contemplates the disconnection of supply in appropriate circumstances. What is contested, and what forms one of the central questions raised by the Originating Summons, is the interaction between that statutory framework and the moratorium under section 410 of the Companies Act 2016 where the debt sought to be recovered is a pre-judicial management debt which is itself the subject of a pending writ action. The Applicant accepts that a licensee has a general regulatory framework for disconnection in ordinary circumstances; its contention is that any such power must be exercised lawfully, fairly and proportionately, must be read consistently with the Companies Act 2016 and the statutory purpose of judicial management, and remains subject to the injunctive jurisdiction of this Court. E. ANALYSIS AND DETERMINATION Whether the Application Was Properly Heard Ex Parte [22] The first issue is whether this is a case of urgency within Order 29 rule 1(2) of the Rules of Court 2012. In my judgment, it plainly is. The Final Notice fixed 30.06.2026 as the deadline for payment and commencing from 06.07.2026 (and/or 07.07.2026) as the date from which disconnection would be effected. The cause papers were filed on 02.07.2026. Between the date of filing and the threatened disconnection there lay an interval of days, within which service of the papers, the filing of an answering affidavit and an effective inter partes hearing could not realistically have been accomplished. Where the act sought to be restrained is imminent and its consequences immediate, the very purpose of the application would be defeated if the Applicant were required to proceed inter partes in the ordinary course. [23] The requirements of Order 29 rule 1(2A) were addressed in the Affidavit in Support and the Certificate of Urgency (Enclosure 4). Significantly for the duty of full and frank disclosure, the Applicant placed before the Court the matters adverse to it: the existence of the Respondent's writ action and the substantial sums claimed, the Statement of Account figure of RM3,013,208.43, the terms of the Final Notice, and the pendency of its own judicial management application. The ex parte jurisdiction is exercised on the strength of that disclosure, and nothing in the papers suggested that material facts had been withheld. [24] It must nonetheless be emphasised that an order made ex parte is provisional in the fullest sense. It binds for no more than twenty-one days by operation of Order 29 rule 1(2B); the application must return before the Court inter partes within fourteen days under rule 1(2BA); and the Respondent is at liberty to apply to set the order aside. The ex parte stage decides nothing beyond the preservation of the position for a short and statutorily confined period. Whether There Are Bona Fide Serious Questions to Be Tried [25] The threshold at this stage is not a high one. Following Keet Gerald Francis Noel John v Mohd Noor bin Abdullah & Ors [1995] 1 MLJ 193 (CA), the Court asks only whether the claims disclose bona fide serious issues to be tried and are not frivolous or vexatious, and it must refrain from attempting to resolve contested questions of law or fact as though conducting a trial on affidavits. Two clusters of questions raised by the Originating Summons satisfy that threshold. [26] The first concerns the reach of the statutory moratorium. Upon the filing of the judicial management application on 12.06.2026, a moratorium took effect under section 410 of the Companies Act 2016. During that period, section 410 restrains, except with leave of the Court, the commencement or continuation of proceedings, execution or other legal process against the company or its property. The question is whether the disconnection of electricity supply, effected after the moratorium has taken effect and for the declared purpose of securing payment of a pre-judicial management debt, falls within that restraint, whether as "other legal process", or whether, as the Applicant contends, the statutory scheme, construed purposively in light of the objectives of judicial management, precludes the use of the Respondent's statutory and regulatory powers of disconnection to compel payment of such debt during the currency of the moratorium. Alternatively, the Respondent may contend that its statutory and regulatory right to disconnect electricity for non-payment under the Electricity Supply Act 1990 and the Licensee Supply Regulations 1990 stands outside the moratorium altogether. Those questions are neither frivolous nor vexatious and plainly call for full argument at the inter partes hearing. [27] Both readings are tenable. On the one hand, the language of section 410 is directed in terms at proceedings, execution, legal process, distress and the enforcement of security, and a licensee's statutory power of disconnection is not obviously any of those things. On the other hand, the object of judicial management declared by the scheme of sections 404 and 405 the preservation of the company as a going concern for the collective benefit of its creditors is capable of being defeated entirely if an individual creditor may, by cutting off an essential utility, compel payment of its pre-moratorium debt in full and in priority to all others, notwithstanding that its own writ action for the same debt could not be continued without leave. Whether the Respondent's proposed disconnection amounts in substance to an indirect enforcement of the very claim that is sub judice in Civil Suit No. MA-22NCVC-28-05/2026 is a question of statutory construction of real substance. No authority directly resolving the interaction between the Electricity Supply Act 1990 and sections 410 and 411 of the Companies Act 2016 at the pre-order stage was drawn to my attention; the closest analogue relied upon by the Applicant, Boulevard Plaza (considered at paragraph [20] above), supports its construction in the receivership setting but does not conclude the present question, and it would be wrong to attempt to resolve it ex parte. It is sufficient, and I so hold, that the question is a bona fide serious one. [28] The Applicant advances the same point in a further way, and it is right to record the argument. The chronology, it is said, is telling: the Respondent filed the writ action on or about 25.05.2026; the Applicant filed the judicial management application on 12.06.2026, whereupon the moratorium prevented the writ action from being progressed without leave; and it was only thereafter, on 23.06.2026, that the Final Notice issued. On that footing the Applicant contends that the Final Notice is not a neutral administrative act but a means of achieving indirectly, by commercial pressure, what the moratorium prevents directly payment of a disputed pre-judicial management debt outside the court process and outside the collective restructuring process; that a creditor permitted to disconnect an essential supply in order to compel such payment obtains a practical preference over all other creditors, contrary to the collective and pari passu character of corporate rescue; and that judicial management is not a debt evasion mechanism but a statutory rescue and repayment mechanism under which the Respondent, as a creditor, stands to be paid, the Applicant undertaking meanwhile to pay for current and future consumption. These contentions are for the Respondent to answer inter partes, and the Court expresses no view upon their correctness; it suffices for present purposes that they are seriously arguable and reinforce the conclusion that bona fide serious questions exist. [29] The second cluster concerns quantum. The figures appearing in the Respondent's own documents do not correspond: the writ action claims RM3,013,208.43 according to the Statement of Account as at 05.05.2026, whereas the Final Notice dated 23.06.2026 demands RM2,984,366.18, described by reference to arrears of RM2,713,208.43 and a current bill of RM271,157.75. The reconciliation of those sums, the basis of the charges, the billing periods and the treatment of any payments or adjustments are matters requiring evidence and proof, and they are squarely in issue in the pending writ action. On the material before the Court the dispute as to quantum cannot be dismissed as illusory or contrived. Whether a licensee may properly exercise the drastic power of disconnection while the quantum of the debt relied upon is alleged to be genuinely disputed and is awaiting judicial determination is itself a serious question fit for trial. [30] In fairness to the Respondent, two matters must be stated plainly. First, the existence of a dispute does not by itself extinguish the statutory power of disconnection; whether the dispute here is genuine and substantial, and what consequence follows, are precisely the matters to be examined inter partes. Secondly, nothing in these grounds decides that the moratorium catches the Respondent's conduct. Both questions remain fully open. But their existence and seriousness cannot be gainsaid, and that is all the first stage of the inquiry requires. Whether Damages Would Be an Adequate Remedy [31] The second stage asks whether the Applicant, if it succeeds at trial, would be adequately compensated by an award of damages for the loss suffered in the interval. In my judgment it would not, for three reasons. [32] First, the nature of the harm. Electricity is not an ordinary commercial input; would severely disrupt the operations of the Premises. The Premises include the operations of the AMES Hotel. Disconnection would displace guests, disrupt accommodation and engage the safety of occupants, and, as the grounds in Enclosure 2 depose, would injure the standing of the hotel with domestic and international visitors in the year of Visit Malaysia 2026. The Applicant asserts, with particularity, that the AMES Hotel is a five-star hotel and that without electricity it cannot safely and properly provide lighting, airconditioning, lifts, security and electronic access systems, fire and safety systems, water pumps, kitchen operations, refrigeration, reservation and payment systems, internet access and guest services; the apprehended harm, it is said, extends to cancellations, loss of guest and tourist confidence, and reputational damage capable of exceeding the value of the disputed bill. Injury of that character to reputation, to guest confidence and to the safety and continuity of an operating hotel is not readily measured in money. [33] Secondly, and more fundamentally, the destruction of the subject matter of the proceedings. The Applicant has invoked the judicial management jurisdiction, the declared object of which is its survival as a going concern. A disconnection of supply pending the disposal of that application is capable of collapsing the undertaking before the rescue mechanism can be considered at all, rendering the judicial management application, the present Originating Summons and, in practical terms, the defence of the writ action academic. Where the refusal of interim relief would destroy the very subject matter which the proceedings exist to protect, damages are by definition an inadequate remedy. [34] Thirdly, the position of the Respondent is the mirror image. If the injunction is granted and the Respondent ultimately prevails, its loss is the delayed receipt of money a loss quantifiable to the ringgit and compensable under the Applicant's undertaking as to damages, reinforced by the condition, imposed below, that consumption from the date of the order be paid for as it falls due. The asymmetry between irreversible operational destruction on the one side and delayed monetary recovery on the other is marked. The Balance of Convenience and the Terms of Relief [35] The balance of justice favours the preservation of the status quo, namely that the supply of electricity to the Premises remains connected. The injunction sought is prohibitory, not mandatory; it preserves rather than alters the existing position; and, by virtue of the Rules, any ex parte injunction granted is of limited duration and is intended only to preserve the position until an inter partes hearing can be convened promptly. Against that short and controlled interval, the risk of injustice arising from refusal, namely serious disruption to the Applicant's business operations and the risk of rendering the pending judicial management application and the present Originating Summons substantially nugatory, is significantly greater than the risk of injustice arising from the grant of interim relief, namely a brief postponement of the Respondent's exercise of its asserted statutory and regulatory right to disconnect the electricity supply while its monetary claim remains wholly intact, subject only to such leave as section 410 of the Companies Act 2016 may require. The balance may therefore be stated shortly: if the injunction is granted, the Respondent remains protected by its writ action, by the judicial management process should a judicial management order subsequently be made, by the Applicant's undertaking to pay for current and future electricity consumption, by such security as the Court may hereafter direct, and by the Applicant's undertaking as to damages. If, on the other hand, the injunction is refused, the Applicant's business operations, the AMES Hotel, its guests and employees, the interests of the general body of creditors, and the efficacy of the pending proceedings are exposed to immediate and potentially irreparable harm. [36] The Respondent's legitimate interests are, moreover, capable of concrete protection within the order itself. Three safeguards are imposed. First, the order is granted upon the Applicant's usual undertaking as to damages. Secondly, the Applicant must pay for all electricity consumed at the Premises from the date of the order as and when such charges fall due, without prejudice to its right to dispute the sums claimed for the period before the order; the injunction is protection against the coercive recovery of a disputed pre-existing debt, not a licence to consume electricity without payment. Thirdly, the order is of the limited duration which the Rules themselves prescribe, and the Respondent may apply to set it aside. [37] It remains to address the scope of the relief by reference to the prayers in Enclosure 2. Prayers 1, 2 and 3 are prohibitory and interlocking: they restrain disconnection of the supply to the Premises on account no. 220469846601, restrain enforcement of the Final Notice dated 23.06.2026 or any further notice of like intent, and restrain disconnection founded upon the disputed arrears, current bills, charges, computations or statements of account. Those prayers are granted as ad interim relief on the terms and for the duration stated below. [38] Prayer 4 seeks a mandatory order directing the Respondent to reconnect the electricity supply to the Premises within twenty-four hours in the event that the supply has already been disconnected before the making of this order. On the material presently before the Court, that contingency has not arisen. The Final Notice states that the threatened disconnection would commence only from 06.07.2026 and/or 07.07.2026, and there is nothing before the Court to indicate that the electricity supply has been disconnected prior to the hearing. A mandatory injunction, particularly on an ex parte application, calls for a higher degree of assurance than a prohibitory injunction and ought not to be granted in respect of a contingency which has not arisen. Prayer 4 is therefore not granted at this stage, with liberty to the Applicant to apply should the Respondent disconnect the electricity supply notwithstanding this order. [39] For the avoidance of doubt, nothing in this order determines, or is to be taken as expressing any concluded view upon, the proper construction of section 410 of the Companies Act 2016, the interaction between the Companies Act 2016 and the Electricity Supply Act 1990 and the Licensee Supply Regulations 1990 in relation to the Respondent's asserted right to disconnect the electricity supply, the merits of Civil Suit No. MA-22NCVC-28-05/2026, the judicial management application, or the sums, if any, due from the Applicant to the Respondent. All such questions are preserved for determination at the inter partes hearing and in the substantive proceedings. F. CONCLUSION [40] This application was, in the end, an exercise in holding the ring. The circumstances of urgency were made out; the questions raised the interaction of the judicial management moratorium with a licensee's power of disconnection, and the genuineness of the dispute over the sums demanded are bona fide and serious; the harm apprehended from disconnection is of a kind money cannot adequately repair, while the Respondent's exposure is monetary, short-lived and secured by undertaking and conditions. In those circumstances the just course is to preserve the existing position for the brief period the Rules allow, upon terms that protect the Respondent, and to remit every substantive question to the inter partes stage where it belongs. G. ORDERS OF THE COURT [41] For the reasons given above, it is ordered as follows: