Turiya sues John Hopkins over terminated medical university deal

Perdana University will be officially launched by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak on Sept 12, 2011. The ceremony will also see Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad installed as the university's first chancellor. Perdana University Graduate School of Medicine (Pugsom) and Perdana University-Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI) School of Medicine will receive its first batch of 27 and almost 100 students respectively.

KUALA LUMPUR: Turiya Bhd and Chase Perdana Sdn Bhd are suing US-based Johns Hopkins University and its medical education unit Johns Hopkins Medicine International LLC over their 2014 pull-out from a project to set up a medical university and manage a medical degree programme in Malaysia.

Turiya, an industrial machinery manufacturer and property investment firm, told Bursa Malaysia that it and Chase Perdana were claiming for general damages, aggravated damages, interests, costs, and any other relief the court deemed fit and appropriate.

“The suit is premised upon inter alia the defendants’ breach of contract and/or misrepresentation arising from a collaboration between Turiya and Chase Perdana Sdn Bhd with the defendants towards the establishment of a newly developed medical university, research centre and teaching hospital in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and the management of a Johns Hopkins affiliated graduate programme thereat,” it said.

To recap, Academic Medical Centre Sdn Bhd (AMC) - which is majority owned by Chase Perdana and the rest by Turiya - signed an agreement with Johns Hopkins University (Baltimore, Maryland), the John Hopkins University School of Medicine and Johns Hopkins Medicine International in November 2010 to develop the four-year graduate medical school and teaching hospital.

In 2011 Perdana University, a public private partnership project run by AMC, opened a temporary campus in Serdang, Selangor, and admitted its first batch of students for the four-year medical programme in collaboration with Johns Hopkins. (Tan Sri Dr Mohan Swami, who is executive chairman of both Turiya and Chase Perdana, is chairman of the university’s board of governors. Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad is the chancellor.)

However, the partnership with John Hopkins turned sour in 2014 following a dispute over payment, with Johns Hopkins citing frequent late payments and non-payment of services in over a year, Perdana University subsequently announced a collaboration with another top US-based medical school, the University of California, San Diego.