"A court dealt a blow on Friday to a man who claims to be the rightful owner of a historic building in downtown Yangon, rejecting his request to make the local government a defendant in the case. Bilal Ayub Munnee, who says his great grandfather was the building’s original owner, wanted Yangon’s government to share responsibility with the company that renovated the Tourist Burma Building. If the judge had ruled in his favour the local authority would have had to share the cost of 5bn kyat - roughly $3.4m - compensation in the event that Bilal won his case. He is suing the Yangon Metropolitan Development Public Company (YMDP) after it went ahead with a 192m kyat renovation at the building against his wishes between 2017 and 2019. As well as compensation, Bilal is seeking ownership rights. He claims the building still belongs to a trust his family established nearly a century ago. In January, after the YMDP said in its defence that the renovations were ordered by the regional government, Bilal asked the court to name the regional government as a co-defendant. The regional government owns a majority share in YMDP. But the court rejected the request on the grounds that Bilal’s legal team did not give notice to the government two months in advance, as prescribed by the Code of Civil Procedure..."