KUALA LUMPUR, May 7 — The High Court will decide on May 13 whether Datuk Seri Najib Razak can obtain a stay of execution on the US$1.3 billion (about RM5.08 billion) judgment awarded to SRC International Sdn Bhd pending the disposal of his appeal.
Court of Appeal judge Datuk Ahmad Fairuz Zainol Abidin, sitting as the High Court trial judge, will deliver the decision, according to a report in The Edge.
The application concerns a March 31 judgment that ordered Najib to pay US$1.3 billion to SRC, comprising US$1.18 billion in losses suffered by the company and a separate US$120 million in company funds that entered his private bank account.
Najib’s lawyer Muhammad Farhan Shafee argued that the size of the judgment, imposed on an individual rather than a company, amounted to a special circumstance warranting a stay.
He also cited Najib’s imprisonment, his other court-related liabilities involving SRC, 1MDB and tax matters, and SRC’s winding-up in January 2026, arguing that recovery would be unrealistic if Najib’s appeal succeeds.
SRC’s lawyer P Gananathan opposed the stay, arguing that Najib had not met the legal threshold of showing special circumstances to justify pausing enforcement of the judgment.
SRC’s lawyer P. Gananathan opposed the stay, arguing that personal hardship, the size of the sum, reputational loss and concern over recovery do not amount to special circumstances.
“However sympathetic those facts may appear, there remains consequence of enforcement. They are not, in law, exceptional,” he was quoted as saying.
He said any money recovered would be placed in the SRC Group Trust Account operated by Minister of Finance Incorporated for the benefit of the SRC group.
