KUALA LUMPUR, March 11 — Liquidators recovering assets for Malaysia’s scandal-hit sovereign wealth fund 1MDB said today that they will pursue “possible workarounds” after a Singapore court upheld the dismissal of their bid to sue Standard Chartered Bank and BSI Bank for alleged fraud.
Statutory claims will be pursued in addition to other separate and ongoing claims, the liquidators said in a statement following the Singapore Court of Appeal’s decision to uphold a lower tribunal ruling.
The liquidators said they have applied locally in Singapore to wind up certain British Virgin Island entities, with the hearing expected in the next few weeks.
The liquidators allege that Standard Chartered enabled fraud leading to more than US$2.7 billion (RM10.5 billion) in financial losses linked to 1MDB more than 10 years ago.
Singapore’s High Court dismissed the suit against Standard Chartered and BSI in October, ruling that the city state’s cross-border insolvency framework could not be applied to the case as the alleged transactions occurred before the law took effect in 2018.
“The liquidators remain steadfast in their pursuit of justice and accountability in respect of those who facilitated the fraudulent acts that deprived the creditors of the companies,” they said in the statement on Wednesday.
US and Malaysian investigators say about US$4.5 billion was stolen from the 1Malaysia Development Berhad state fund between 2009 and 2014 in a complex, globe-spanning scheme that resulted in the jailing of a former prime minister. — Reuters
