KUALA LUMPUR: The High Court has deferred its decision in a lawsuit by SRC International Sdn Bhd against Datuk Seri Najib Razak and former SRC CEO Nik Faisal Ariff Kamil over breach of fiduciary duty.
Justice Ahmad Fairuz Zainol Abidin said he would need time to deliberate on the submissions by the parties in the case.
"The monkey is now on my back. Please bear with me," he said on Friday (Sept 26).
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Earlier, Najib's lawyer Muhammad Farhan Muhammad Shafee submitted that the third parties, named in the lawsuit, were the "true liable parties" that bore the blame for what happened to SRC.
He said the third parties, former members of the board of directors (BOD), were not legally compelled to follow instructions from the shareholder (Najib).
"They cannot hide behind the veil of 'instructions by the shareholder'.
"They have to be free of external pressure and exercise independent judgment," Farhan said.
As for the claim that some of the BOD members feared losing their jobs if instructions by Najib were not executed, Farhan said this was a weak reason for breaching one's fiduciary duty.
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"If you know your decision is the right thing, there are remedies (to protect your rights) such as going to the Industrial Court.
"You cannot be so beholden to one thing that you breach your fiduciary duty. Such an excuse cannot stand in corporate Malaysia," he added.
SRC filed the legal action in May 2021, alleging that Najib had committed breach of trust, abuse of power, misappropriated the company's funds, and personally benefitted from it.
It named Najib, along with its former directors Datuk Suboh Md Yassin, Mohammed Azhar Osman Khairuddin, Nik Faisal, Datuk Che Abdullah @ Rashidi Che Omar, Datuk Shahrol Azral Ibrahim Halmi and Tan Sri Ismee Ismail, in May 2021.
However, it later removed six names from the suit and retained Najib and Nik Faisal as the first and second defendants.
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Additionally, Najib has brought the former SRC International directors as third-party respondents in the suit.
The company is seeking damages, interests, costs and a court declaration that Najib is responsible for the company’s losses due to his breach of duties and trust, and is demanding that Najib pay back the US$1.18bil in losses that it has suffered.
It is also seeking US$120mil and US$2mil from Najib and Nik Faisal respectively, on account of fraudulent breach of fiduciary duties and breach of trust.
Najib is currently serving a jail term in Kajang Prison for the misappropriation of RM42mil from SRC.
