Public Bank’s witnesses were holding back from giving the ‘fullest’ testimony during the hearing of a suit against it by National Feedlot Corporation (NFCorp), the Court of Appeal heard.
NFCorp’s lead counsel Muhammad Shafee Abdullah today contended that this was done to prevent the commercial bank from being affected over an alleged breach of contract to safeguard the confidentiality of NFCorp’s bank account.
The lawyer was giving oral submission during the hearing of NFCorp’s appeal against the Kuala Lumpur High Court dismissal of its related lawsuit against the bank on July 29, 2019.
Shafee (above) told the three-person Court of Appeal bench chaired by judge Azizah Nawawi that the bank’s witnesses were ‘pulling punches’ about the outcome of its domestic inquiry against its then-employee Johari Mohamad.
The lawyer contended that the inquiry found Johari liable over several allegations, among them for unauthorised access to the accounts and disseminating it to then PKR vice-president Rafizi Ramli (who is now party deputy president and economy minister).
Rafizi then raised the allegations linked to the purported leveraging of a government loan to NFCorp to buy eight KL Eco City properties in a press conference on March 7, 2012.
Shafee told the bench, which also comprised P Ravinthran and S Nantha Balan, that these witnesses were also the same ones who participated in the domestic inquiry, which in the end found Johari liable over the allegations.
Johari later resigned.
The lawyer claimed that the witnesses had testified in the bank’s domestic inquiry in a way that implicated Johari but that they were more restrained during the court hearing of NFCorp’s lawsuit.
“Witnesses of the bank were put in a situation unenvious as they were still working with the bank and (prevented) from giving their fullest statement as the bank would be affected,” Shafee said.
‘No evidence of bank info dissemination’
However, the bank’s counsel Yoong Sin Min disputed this version of events, contending that the bank’s domestic inquiry only found sufficient evidence against Johari about the allegation of unauthorised access to the accounts.
The lawyer said the inquiry did not find evidence of dissemination of the bank information to unauthorised third parties such as Rafizi.
Yoong further contended that NFCorp cannot rely on the bank’s domestic inquiry to strengthen its civil action because the appellant is a third party that was not even involved in the inquiry.
The lawyer contended that the bank witnesses’ court testimony instead showed that the document relied on by Rafizi during the 2012 press conference was not the same bank document linked to the unauthorised access incident.
“The bank had put in place a system to prevent this (unauthorised access of account information), but could not prevent a rogue officer from (committing the) breach, hence no breach of contract,” Yoong claimed.
The lawyer noted that NFCorp never even called Johari or Rafizi to testify in the suit against the bank.
“Despite Rafizi being part of the witness list (during the High Court hearing), the plaintiff (NFCorp) chose not to call him, making the (High Court) judge draw an adverse inference (against NFCorp),” Yoong contended.
She added that following NFCorp’s complaint to Bank Negara, Johari and Rafizi were taken to court for alleged violation of the Banking and Financial Institutions Act 1989 (BAFIA) but that the duo was later not found liable for the charges.
In 2019, the Attorney-General’s Chambers withdrew its appeal against the acquittal of Rafizi and Johari in the Bafia case.
Verdict reserved
Towards the end of online proceedings this afternoon, Azizah announced that the bench had reserved its verdict on the appeal, and would later notify parties when they would deliver their decision.
Besides NFCorp, the other appellants are its executive chairperson Mohamad Salleh Ismail, National Meat and Livestock Corporation Sdn Bhd, Agroscience Industries Sdn Bhd and Real Food Company Sdn Bhd.
On May 22, 2012, NFCorp, Salleh and the three subsidiary companies filed a civil action against Public Bank.
They claimed that their business reputation and credibility had incurred irreparable loss and damage as a result of the security breach at the bank.
Back on April 21 last year before the Federal Court, NFCorp and Salleh failed in a separate appeal involving a defamation suit against Rafizi.
The apex court ruled that Rafizi successfully raised the defence of fair comment to defeat the defamation action, which was over allegations of misuse of government funds. - Mkini
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