The limited liability partnership (LLP) law has come to our shores. The law was gazetted on Feb 9.

Although the LLP has been introduced in many countries, with variations of its features, the broad structural form of the Malaysian LLP derives from the United Kingdom model which was also adopted by the law on LLP in Singapore.

The LLP under this form is a corporation, but is internally managed as a partnership. As a corporation, the LLP has no finite life, unlike a conventional partnership, which ceases on the retirement or withdrawal of a partner. The LLP's corporate status gives it the capacity to sue in its own name and be sued. It is by virtue of this distinctive quality of a separate legal identity that also differentiates an LLP from a conventional partnership.

Three forms of partnership structures are currently in use in the business and professional world. They are the general partnership, the limited partnership and the limited liability partnership.

A general partnership may be formed by persons coming together to pool their resources to carry on business and share profits. Among professionals, the general partnership remained for a long time the only form they could come together to practise their profession.

This in most instances was dictated by their professional bodies, which saw their members' professional skills and the required high sense of individual probity; integrity, uprightness and honesty as adequate protection against malpractice claims.