PUTRAJAYA : Two former directors of CepatWawasan Group Bhd were given three months from Friday (April 1) to repay the company RM13 million used to illegally pay Opti Temasek Sdn Bhd, an action in breach of the financial assistance provisions of Bursa Malaysia's listing requirements.
Failure by Tengku Datuk Kamal Sir Sultan Abu Bakar and Lt Col Tengku Datuk Kamarul Zaman Sir Sultan Abu Bakar to do so would put the brothers in contempt of the court order and makes them liable to five years in jail.
This comes after the Federal Court bench had unanimously dismissed their appeal to set aside the committal proceedings.
Justice Datuk Vernon Ong Lam Kiat, who sat with Puan Sri Zaleha Yusof and Datuk Zabariah Mohd Yusof, ordered them to pay total costs of RM50,000 after their appeal was dismissed.
Tengku Kamal and Tengku Kamarul Zaman had caused CepatWawasan's subsidiary Prolific Yield Sdn Bhd to pay RM13 million to Opti Temasek sometime in 2004, shortly before their removal in August that same year.
CepatWawasan is an investment holding company with its subsidiaries principally involved in oil palm cultivation, milling, quarrying, and sales of oil palm products, and has approximately 10,280 hectares of oil palm plantations in Sabah.
They were eventually fined by Bursa Malaysia Securities Bhd for violating the financial assistance provisions of the bourse's listing requirements for payment made out to Opti Temasek, following a decision by the bourse's listing committee that was subsequently upheld by its appeals committee.
After their appeals were dismissed, counsel for Tengku Kamal and Tengku Kamarul Zaman, Datuk Malik Imtiaz Sarwar said his clients were bankrupt and would not be able to cough up the amount needed to repay the company, which would result in them facing a five-year jail term.
Justice Ong responded that they must find a way to pay the amount.
“They found themselves to be in the situation where they are in,” the judge added.
Comments