John Hancock Life Insurance (Malaysia) Berhad is applying for a High Court order to stop its sacked chief executive officer John Ng from taking wrongful dismissal action against the company to the Industrial Court.

The company obtained the leave from the High Court on May 7 to apply for a certiorari order to quash the decision by Human Resources Minister Fong Chan Onn on Feb 28 to refer Ng's case to the Industrial Court.

The leave was given by High Court judge Abdul Aziz Mohamad after hearing arguments from Ng's lawyer Raymond Low and Romesh Abaraham who represented the company.

Abdul Aziz also ordered a stay of the industrial proceeding pending the disposal of the company's certiorari application. Hearing date for the application has yet to be fixed.

A writ of certiorari is used to review an administrative decision, usually made by ministers and others with administrative powers.

Ng was removed from all his four positions as director, managing director, president, and CEO by John Hancock's shareholders at an extraordinary general meeting on Jan 5 last year.

Ng denied the company's allegations that he had failed to meet business targets and filed an order for reinstatement under Section 20 of the Industrial Relations Act.

After the case was considered by the industrial relations department, the minister had referred the dispute to the Industrial Court for hearing.

On Dec 1, 2000, Ng filed a RM60 million defamation suit against the company claiming that he was "seriously libeled" when the company in an announcement dated Nov 20, 2000 to the Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange said that it was calling for EGM to remove him. The defamation suit is still pending.