KUALA LUMPUR: The government will not pay the remaining US$4.32 billion owed to International Petroleum Investment Co (IPIC) and Aabar.
Instead, it will demand the return of US$1.46 billion that has already been paid by 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB), says Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng.
Lim said the government will go all out to reclaim all the funds which were either lost or stolen from 1MDB.
“1MDB and the Malaysian government will not be paying the balance of US$4.32 billion to IPIC and Aabar. We will instead be demanding a return of the US$1.46 billion which was already paid.
“The government will take all action possible to recover any funds which were deemed missing or stolen from 1MDB,” he said during the tabling of the 2019 Budget in Parliament.
Lim also noted that the government had successfully seized the luxury superyacht Equanimity, linked to the 1MDB financial scandal.
He said the government would begin receiving international bids for the yacht’s sale within a month from Nov 5, 2018.
Attorney-General Tommy Thomas had previously stated that Malaysia will file a legal challenge over a settlement agreement between 1MDB and Abu Dhabi sovereign fund IPIC negotiated during the premiership of former prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak.
International Petroleum Investment Co, known as IPIC, and 1MDB had reached an agreement last year in a payment dispute over 1MDB bonds that IPIC had guaranteed.
The Malaysian fund had agreed to pay US$1.2 billion to IPIC and assumed responsibility for future principal and interest payments for the bonds.
The settlement was triggered by 1MDB’s default on a bond payment due in 2016, which was guaranteed by IPIC in 2012 for the acquisition of two power plants. This caused the latter to refer the dispute to the London Court of Arbitration.
The 1MDB management claimed that it had paid IPIC’s British Virgin Islands-registered subsidiary, Aabar Investment, but Aabar said it never received the money as its subsidiary, which also had the same name, was based in Abu Dhabi.
It was during the time, while the dispute was still unresolved, that a settlement was reached last year by the Finance Ministry, a portfolio that Najib helmed as the minister, to pay US$1.2 billion (RM5.04 billion) to IPIC over a US$6.5 billion claim made by the latter.
During its investigation into the 1MDB-IPIC case, MACC had summoned Najib to its headquarters in Putrajaya twice, with the first on Oct 16, where he was quizzed for six hours, and again, two days later.
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