Ship manager to be hired for Equanimity

PORT KLANG: A ship manager will be hired to manage the superyacht Equanimity and to look into the needs of the crew, said a lawyer representing 1MDB and the government.

Jeremy Joseph said that special care had to be taken to preserve the value of the US$250mil (RM1bil) superyacht that is now docked at the Boustead Cruise Centre in Pulau Indah, Port Klang.

“We are conscious that it has a high value. Special care has to be taken to manage and preserve that value as much as possible so that when we eventually put the vessel up for sale we can fetch highest possible price,” he told reporters here on Wednesday (Aug 8).

Jeremy who is part of the legal team representing 1MDB had attended a two-hour meeting with representatives from the marine department, the police, the navy and Boustead to discuss safety and security issues pertaining to the vessel.

1MDB has laid claim to the Equanimity, claiming that it was purchased using fraudulently misappropriated funds by its former directors, officers and advisors.

Jeremy said they were in the process of getting quotations for a qualified and competent ship manager from several companies, although the sheriff of the Admiralty court would make a final decision on this.

He said a ship manager would take care of the cleaning needs and making sure that the documentation is updated among other things.

The impressive Dutch-made superyacht, which purportedly belonged to fugitive businessman Low Taek Jho, also known as Jho Low, docked at the centre at about 1pm on Tuesday (Aug 7).

The yacht was still docked at the same place it was yesterday.

The vessel was seized in Bali in February at the request of US authorities as part of a multibillion-dollar corruption investigation launched by the US Department of Justice (DoJ) related to 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB).

However, a Jakarta court ruling in April ruled in favour of the owners after they applied for a court motion to declare the seizure as illegal.

In July, Indonesian police seized the yacht again following a formal request for legal assistance from the United States.

Reuters reported the decision by the Indonesian government to hand over the superyacht to Malaysia was reached following a personal request by Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, who had visited Indonesia in June.

Dr Mahathir on Monday thanked Indonesia for its cooperation and said that if Jho Low could prove he had purchased the billion-ringgit luxury vessel with his own money, he could get it back.