IT GETS WORSE FOR NAJIB & CO: INFLOW OF U.S. DOLLARS INTO DISGRACED EX-PM’S AMBANK ACCOUNT COINCIDED WITH ANZ RIGGING USD-MYR FOREX MARKET IN SINGAPORE – REPORT

Presented here as reported

As reported by The Star/Bernama:

An ex-banker who handled Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s accounts at AmBank told the High Court here Monday (July 29) that RM1.13bil was transferred into the former premier’s accounts between 2011 and 2013.

Joanna Yu Ging Ping, 48, who was formerly an AmBank relationship manager, said Najib received US$369.99mil in several transactions between 2011 and Jan 10, 2013.

The 54th prosecution witness said this during cross-examination by Najib’s lawyer Harvinderjit Singh on the 45th day of the accused’s trial for misappropriation of SRC International Sdn Bhd funds totalling RM42mil.

Harvinderjit: The total amount of foreign funds transferred into Najib’s account ending in 694 is US$369.99mil?

Yu: Yes

The above which has been revealed in court in Malaysia  is compared with this excerpt from a decision of the Federal Court Australia in Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) v Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Limited [2016] FCA 1516 (14 December 2016)

This excerpt is from a statement of agreed facts between the ACCC and ANZ.

On ten occasions during 2011, traders employed by ANZ, which was a member of the relevant panel of submitting banks, engaged in discussions with traders employed by other banks, including other submitting banks, about the submissions that would be made concerning the Malaysian  ringgit  benchmark rate.On eight occasions during 2011, a trader employed by Macquarie engaged in the same sorts of discussions, though Macquarie was not itself a submitting bank. The traders employed by ANZ and Macquarie attempted to get the traders employed by the other banks to make either high submissions, or low submissions, as the case may be, and thereby manipulate the setting of the Malaysian  ringgit  benchmark rate. In so doing, they attempted to make arrangements which indirectly provided for the fixing of the price for Malaysian  ringgit  forward contracts.

That is because the prices of those contracts were essentially determined by reference to the benchmark rates. ANZ, Macquarie and the banks whose traders participated in those discussions were in competition with each other in the market for Malaysian  ringgit  forward contracts. The arrangements that the ANZ and Macquarie traders attempted to make with the traders from the other banks therefore contained cartel provisions.

ANZ’s management of AMBank included provision of forex expertise.
AMBank’s business is predominantly in Malaysian Ringgit (MYR). It does appear as if ANZ took breached Australian law in order to handle an extraordinary influx of USD.

Najib’s accounts;Hsien Yang’s presence raises questions about Singapore’s inaction

While ANZ’s new CEO Shyane Elliot continues to deny that he was on the AMMB board despite the evidence one group of people within the ANZ hierarchy have been happy to literally stay aloof from from their hired help. I refer here to ANZ’s chairman David Gonski and the ANZ board of directors, who include Lee Hsein Yang, brother to Singapore PM Lee Hsien Yang.

The board led by Gonski are ultimately responsible for governance, and Australian laws make it very hard if not impossible for Gonski and his board to play the lord who cannot be held responsible for the misbehavior of his servants.

David Gonski was appointed chairman of ANZ in February 2014.He was among others, a director of Singtel from 2012-2105. Gonski was therefore in charge of the board at the relevant time.

As Malaysiakini reported the matter of the SRC International transfers into Najib’s accounts:

For the December 2014 transaction, former 1MDB subsidiary SRC International Sdn Bhd transferred RM40 million to its subsidiary Gandingan Mentari Sdn Bhd on Dec 24 which was subsequently passed on to Ihsan Perdana Sdn Bhd on the same day.

A total of RM32 million from this amount found its way into two of the Ambank private bank accounts two days later, in two tranches of RM27 million and RM5 million.

Lee Hsien Yang’s membership of the board raises further questions about Singapore’s attempts to make  the 1 MDB scandal go away.

Ganesh Saahathevan

– http://realpolitikasia.blogspot.com