KUALA LUMPUR: The local law firms that participated in the negotiations of two highly secretive multi-billion dollar settlement agreements related to the 1Malaysia Development Bhd ( 1MDB ) scandal are now playing a bigger part in Malaysia’s campaign against US banking giant Goldman Sachs.
The Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission ( MACC ) and Rosli Dahlan Sarvana Partnership ( RDS Partnership) are currently embroiled in a potentially contentious legal dispute over the surrender of records and banking account information related to the 1MDB case.
Two weeks ago, the MACC raided the law firms’ offices, but the company’s requests for documents pertaining to the lawsuit negotiations were denied on the grounds of the client being confidential. As a result, the MACC was compelled to take the case to court.
The Malaysian High Court will hear arguments from both sides somewhere in early November, according to attorneys involved in the legal difference.
Fresh QUESTIONS
The management of the settlement agreements by the prior administration, led by former top Muhyiddin Yassin, with US banks behemoth Goldman Sachs and the nation’s sixth-largest banking establishment AmBank Group, has now come under scrutiny as a result of disclosures in court filings made prior to the hearings reviewed by CNA next week.
The Muhyiddin administration’s decision to settle with Goldman Sachs more than two months prior to the US bank behemoth entering into a deferred prosecution agreement with the Department of Justice in October 2020 after admitting to conspiring to break the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act in the 1MDB incident is the most notable of these. & nbsp,
Additionally, recently unrevealed information about the government’s agreement with AmBank, which was the main local financial institution in charge of all 1MDB-related counts, has been made public by the court papers.
While Chetan Jetwani and Company represented the US banks behemoth in the settlement agreement conversations, RDS Partnership had acted as the Indonesian government’s legal counsel during the Goldman Sachs and AmBank communities.
A letter by RDS Partnership that was filed in court noted that the central bank, Bank Negara Malaysia, hadcautioned Mr Muhyiddin, who served as premier for 17 months beginning March 2020, that publicly-listed AmBank should not be penalised more than RM600 million (US$125.9 million) “as anything more could cause the collapse of the banking system”.
The RDS Partnership text added that its top partner, attorney Rosli Dahlan, who served as the government’s top private-sector negotiator, had spoken directly with AmBank management and was able to secure the repayment of a RM2.8 billion fine for its involvement in the 1MDB scandal in February 2021.
Why AmBank consented to a significantly higher good was not stated in the letter.