KUALA LUMPUR, June 21 — The Finance Ministry-owned 1Malaysia Development Berhad had cited then prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak when urging for Deutsche Bank to help the company quickly transfer out US$1 billion to two overseas accounts in September 2009, and had even gave a specific time of wanting it to be done before 4pm on that day, the High Court heard today.
The other document provided to Deutsche Bank was a September 26, 2009 1MDB board meeting minutes where the directors approved then 1MDB executive director Casey Tang as the authorised officer to approve and execute the US$1 billion transaction to be transferred specifically to the joint venture firm’s account.
While explaining it is not the practice of banks to carry out due diligence on the recipients of funds as those are not their clients, Ho said Deutsche Bank had also carried out the standard checks to ensure that both the joint venture firm and PetroSaudi International were not on any list for sanctions or criminal watch list.
Ho said Tang had asked Deutsche Bank to carry out the US$1 billion transfer as soon as possible as it was allegedly a government-to-government transaction. “He said can you all process this transaction quickly, we are going to sit here and wait and give us the confirmation, can you do it before four, because the press statement by prime minister, he’s going to announce it, we need transaction to be done before that,” she said.This purported representation by Casey motivated you to undertake this transaction as soon as you can?I don’t think — I guess yes and no.
“So from that point, obviously since it is owned by the Ministry of Finance and Datuk Seri Najib was finance minister as well, so it’s only natural that he would want to give a press statement about a large investment,” she said. Among other things, Ho said 1MDB had insisted on leaving out the name of the two accounts’ holders that would be receiving the US$1 billion sum from Deutsche Bank’s remittance instruction, and that Tang had even said it was 1MDB’s external lawyers who instructed for the remittance instruction to be in that form.
Explaining why Deutsche Bank could not check on Good Star’s identity, Ho said: “We can’t check that because Good Star is not our client, 1MDB is our client and we have to trust the representation of 1MDB. As CEO of 1MDB, he said this is a subsidiary of PetroSaudi International and PetroSaudi International Limited wants it transferred directly to the subsidiary, we take that as good because at that point, we did not have any cause to distrust whatever 1MDB was telling.
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