KUALA LUMPUR: The United States Department of Justice has entered into a confidential agreement with fugitive financier Low Taek Jho, better known as Jho Low, in an effort to reach a global settlement and bring the extensive asset forfeiture efforts linked to the tainted 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) to a final chapter, reports said.
According to documents reviewed by Channel NewsAsia (CNA), the global settlement will "forever resolve the United States' civil, criminal, and administrative asset forfeiture actions or proceedings relating to the disposition" of assets tied to 1MDB.
The report stated that the DOJ signed a confidential agreement with Low's family lawyers and their financial trustees on June 3 and 4.
Parties who signed the agreement included Margaret A. Moeser, acting chief of the DOJ's Money Laundering and Asset Recovery section in the Criminal Division, lawyers for the Lows' financial trustee, and Low's family lawyer Robin Rathmell of the law firm Kasowitz Benson Torres.
The updated settlement plan, the report said, involved the surrendering of assets previously identified by authorities, as well as those not previously claimed or captured by prosecuting agencies worldwide.
The report added that the confidential agreement, which has yet to be publicly disclosed, is tied to the DOJ's June 26 announcement that it is set to recover an additional US$100 million (RM471 million) in resolving two civil forfeiture cases.
According to lawyers quoted in the report, the agreement also outlines other confidential commitments to the US government, which will pursue settlement negotiations with other counterparties, including administrations in other international jurisdictions.
"As we have discussed, this Settlement Letter Agreement takes into account your preference for the United States to handle negotiations with Malaysia, Singapore, Switzerland, France and other foreign countries which have restraining orders in place as to most of the assets described below and in the Actions, and sets forth the procedure for the liquidation and transfer of net liquidated proceeds to Malaysia, as well as our mutual interest in resolving any potential litigation over the assets referenced below in Table 1,"according to the documents reviewed by CNA.
It was reported yesterday that Low will forfeit more than US$100 million including a luxury Paris apartment and works by Claude Monet and Andy Warhol to settle civil forfeiture cases over his role in the 1MDB scandal.
The forfeited assets are in addition to nearly US$1 billion, including a US$120 million "superyacht," that Low and his family previously forfeited.
Low still faces criminal money laundering and bribery conspiracy charges in Brooklyn, New York, over sovereign wealth fund 1MDB.
US and Malaysian authorities have said more than $4.5 billion was looted from 1MDB between 2009 and 2015, with some money sent to offshore bank accounts and shell companies linked to Low.
The financier had helped former prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak set up 1MDB to promote economic development.
Goldman Sachs, which helped 1MDB sell bonds, reached a US$2.9 billion settlement in 2020 of a US criminal case concerning 1MDB.