Guan Eng Files Bankruptcy Notice Against Muhyiddin Over Rm1 4mil Debt

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Muhyiddin Yassin was ordered to pay Lim Guan Eng RM1.35 million in damages and RM50,000 in costs after the High Court held him liable for defamation.
KUALA LUMPUR: Lim Guan Eng has filed for a bankruptcy notice against Muhyiddin Yassin over a RM1.4 million judgment awarded by the High Court in a defamation suit over remarks the former prime minister made concerning Yayasan Al-Bukhary’s tax-exempt status.
Lim’s solicitors, Guok Partnership, confirmed the filing this evening.
Lawyer Guok Ngek Seong said the notice will have to be served personally on the Bersatu president once the sealed copy has been extracted from the court.
“The notice was filed after the defendant failed to pay the judgment sum as demanded within a specific period,” he told FMT.

He said he has also been served with cause papers filed on Muhyiddin’s behalf seeking to stay execution of the judgment.
The stay application was filed by Muhyiddin’s solicitors, Chetan Jethwani & Co, today pending his appeal against the High Court judgment handed down last month.
On Nov 8, Justice Roz Mawar Rozain said Lim, the DAP chairman and former Penang chief minister, had proved his case against Muhyiddin on a balance of probabilities.
“The statements had lowered his (Lim’s) reputation in the eyes of an ordinary person,” she said in her grounds of judgment.

Roz Mawar awarded Lim RM350,000 in general damages for each of the three defamatory statements, RM150,000 in aggravated damages and an additional sum of RM150,000 as exemplary damages.
She also ordered Muhyiddin to pay RM50,000 in costs and directed that he retract the offending statements and not republish them.
She had held Muhyiddin liable for a statement he made on March 9 alleging that Lim, as finance minister at the time, had wrongfully caused the inland revenue department (LHDN) to revoke the tax-exempt status of Muslim charitable organisation Yayasan Albukhary.
The statement was published shortly after Muhyiddin was released from arrest by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission.
The judge also found a second statement made in a media release issued by Muhyiddin two days later to be defamatory of Lim.
Muhyiddin had claimed that Lim, as finance minister, was responsible for imposing a tax on the foundation and for levying a 45% penalty on tax payable for preceding years.
She also ruled in Lim’s favour in connection with a third statement made by Muhyiddin to the media after he had delivered his winding-up speech at Bersatu’s annual general assembly on March 12.
In that statement, Muhyiddin had claimed that the instructions to cancel the foundation’s tax-exempt status must have come from Lim as LHDN was within his purview at the time.
Roz Mawar said the three statements implied that Lim had abused his power against Muslims.
“This exposed him to hatred in a multiracial society,” she said, dismissing Muhyiddin’s defences of justification, fair comment and qualified privilege as being unsustainable. - FMT

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