PUTRAJAYA (May 11): The Court of Appeal (CoA) yesterday has fixed Aug 18 to hear an appeal by Deleum Primera Sdn Bhd senior executives to recuse High Court Judicial Commissioner (JC) Ong Chee Kwan from presiding in the company’s RM19.88 million civil suit against them, along with Petronas Carigali Sdn Bhd executives and its own sub-contractors, over an alleged scheme to swindle the company.
Deleum Primera is 60%-owned by Deleum Bhd.
Lawyer Mohd Haniff Khatri Abdulla, representing the four Deleum Primera senior executives, confirmed the hearing date with theedgemarkets.com.
This follows the case management of the matter before CoA deputy registrar Radzilawatee Abdul Rahman yesterday.
The CoA had on April 30 granted a stay of hearing on the four senior executives’ application, pending their appeal for this recusal application.
Appellate judge Datuk Lee Swee Seng, who led a three-member bench, allowed the stay application but ruled that it would not affect Deleum Primera executing an ex parte order on having a Mareva injunction granted by the High Court.
Six of the 10 defendants named by Deleum Primera had on Dec 10 tried to recuse Ong on the grounds that the judge posed a real danger of bias. However, the judge dismissed the application on March 9, which led to this appeal.
They claimed that as Ong had seemingly helped the plaintiff to correct the latter’s applications for an ex parte delivery up order and Mareva injunction — which freezes the assets of defendants, pending the outcome of the case — at a previous hearing.
The applicants had further asserted that the company had dragged the JC into the dispute to cover up the weakness of their case by using the JC’s name in replying to the preliminary issues raised by the defendants.
The four who filed for the recusal are Mazrin Ramli, Khairulazmi Mohamad Karudin, Noor Azlina Zakaria and Muhammad Hafiz Abd Aziz.
Deleum Primera’s counsel Datuk Lim Chee Wee argued that the recusal application sought did not satisfy the high threshold to prove a real danger of bias.
The company filed the RM19.88 million civil suit against 10 entities, including Petronas Carigali Sdn Bhd executives, last November for purportedly involving themselves in a scheme to swindle the company.
The company also lodged a report with the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) over the alleged illegal scheme last Nov 25.
So far, two senior executives working for Deleum Primera have been interviewed by the MACC in its investigation into the scheme.
In a Dec 14 report, The Edge Malaysia weekly, citing sources, wrote that the MACC was closely following the money trail from Petronas Carigali through Deleum Primera and its subcontractors, and into Petronas Carigali executives, to understand the modus operandi involved in the illegal scheme as it suspected it was a wider scheme involving the Petronas subsidiary and its main contractors through their subcontractors.
It was understood that Petronas Carigali had taken action against its staff, based on a message from Petroliam Nasional Bhd (Petronas) president and group chief executive officer (CEO) Tengku Muhammad Taufik Tengku Aziz, who noted that an internal probe was being conducted.
Deleum Primera, however, has denied any involvement of the company’s top management in the scheme. It also denied any alleged understating of the company’s profits for the financial year ended Dec 31, 2019 (FY19) and any other allegations of false accounting.
Read also:
Four Deleum Primera senior execs get stay until recusal of judge appeal heard
High Court dismisses application to recuse judicial commissioner in Deleum’s RM20m suit over alleged scheme to defraud firm
