PUTRAJAYA: Datuk Seri Najib Razak failed in his final bid to set aside a Mareva injunction obtained by SRC International Bhd and one of its subsidiaries to restrain him from transferring or selling any of his assets amounting to RM42 million.
A three-member panel of the Federal Court led by Datuk Nallini Pathmanathan today dismissed Najib's appeal and ordered him to pay RM30,000 in costs.
She said there was no appealable error made by the lower court in granting the Mareva injunction which warranted the apex court's intervention.
A Mareva injunction is a temporary order which restrains the defendant from disposing of assets until the determination of the case between the plaintiff and the defendant.
On March 24 this year, the court granted the Mareva injunction to the companies and directed Najib not to remove, dispose of, deal with or diminish the value of any assets in and outside of Malaysia up to the value of RM42 million, pending the final determination of the lawsuit they had filed against him.
Besides that, the former Pekan member of parliament is only entitled to withdraw up to RM100,000 per month for his living expenses and for payment of legal fees.
This prompted Najib to file an appeal to the Court of Appeal, which dismissed the appeal. Najib then appealed to the Federal Court.
SRC International and subsidiary Gandingan Mentari filed the suit against Najib last year, claiming that he had committed a breach of trust, misused his power, benefited personally from the SRC International funds and misappropriated the funds.
The suit is pending in the High Court in Kuala Lumpur.
Najib, 70, is serving 12 years in jail after the Federal Court, in August last year, upheld his conviction and jail sentence and RM210 million fine for misappropriating RM42 million in SRC International funds.