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KUALA LUMPUR: A former bank official together with AmBank Islamic Bhd and AMMB Holdings Bhd successfully settled a lawsuit brought by former Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak over allegations of mishandling their bank accounts.
High Court Judge Judge Khadijah Idris, in allowing Joanna Yu and the two banks’ request, said Najib’s claim was untenable, scandalous, frivolous, vexatious and an abuse of the judicial process.
In his ruling, the judge also noted that Najib initiated the lawsuit against Yu and the two entities after she testified at the SRC International Sdn Bhd trial.
Yu was the 54th prosecution witness to testify against the Pekan deputy at the trial.
“This action by the plaintiff is not to seek damages but for a collateral purpose to strengthen the plaintiff’s defense in the SRC case and therefore an abuse of the judicial process,” the judge said here yesterday.
Since then, Najib has been convicted of the SRC International case.
The court also ordered Najib to pay RM30,000 in costs to AmBank and AMMB Holdings and RM25,000 in costs to Yu.
Lawyer Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah, who represented Najib, informed the court that they would soon file an appeal against the decision.
Attorneys Datuk Dr Gurdial Singh Nijar and Yoong Sin Min appeared for Yu and AmBank, respectively.
Both Yu and Najib did not appear in court during the proceedings.
On December 9 last year, Najib filed the lawsuit in the High Court registry and named AmBank, AMMB Holdings and Yu as defendants.
According to the claim brief, the plaintiff claimed that AmBank and Yu had been negligent in managing their bank accounts (ending at 694, 880, 898 and 906) by disclosing them to fugitive businessman Low Taek Jho, better known as Jho Low.
Najib claimed that the unauthorized defendants had disclosed their bank statements, credit and debit remittance transactions, and fund balances in account 694 to Low as a third party.
He claimed that the defendants did not engage with him to report Low’s actions with respect to said bank account and that the bank had facilitated the unauthorized third party to make money transfers between accounts 880, 898, and 906.
Najib claimed that the bank had kept him in the dark about the details of his own bank account statements and other related documents under Low’s instructions.
It alleged that Low with the help of other unauthorized third parties had carried out 20 transactions to regularize the accounts totaling RM12,000 through various remittances of local and foreign funds and that the accounts had been “flagged” by Bank Negara.
He claimed that the defendants did not report and did not receive direct instructions from him despite the accounts being flagged.
Najib also claimed that he only discovered the act committed by the defendants during the SRC International trial after the prosecution disclosed the conversations between Yu and third parties.
On July 28, Kuala Lumpur High Court Judge, Judge Mohd Nazlan Mohd Ghazali, convicted and sentenced Najib to 12 years in prison and fined him RM 210,000.
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