Return 1MDB fees and more, Guan Eng tells Goldman Sachs
FMT Reporters
-November 7, 2018 11:20 PM
Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng says the fees paid to Goldman Sachs has cost Malaysia ‘big losses’. (Bloomberg pic)PETALING JAYA: Lim Guan Eng today told American investment bank Goldman Sachs to return the US$588 million fees it was paid for its work with 1MDB, The Malay Mail reported.
The finance minister said Goldman Sachs was paid for raising bonds totalling US$6.5 billion for the state investment arm in 2012 and 2013.
“They must pay us back this money, not only the US$588 million but much more than that,” the portal quoted Lim as saying during a briefing on Budget 2019 in Penang.
Lim said the fees paid to the investment bank “had cost Malaysia big losses”.
“Even the Goldman Sachs chief executive officer has admitted that its employees had broken the law in this,” he said.
Earlier today, Goldman Sachs chief executive David Solomon said two former employees “blatantly broke the law” in their dealings with state fund 1MDB.
US prosecutors have filed criminal charges against the two former Goldman bankers and a Malaysian financier over the alleged theft of billions of dollars from the fund.
Former senior executive Timothy Leissner pleaded guilty to corruption and money laundering charges in the US.
Roger Ng, a former participating managing director, was also charged alongside controversial businessman Low Taek Jho, the alleged mastermind of the 1MDB scandal, who was charged in absentia.
Yesterday, PKR president-elect Anwar Ibrahim, when criticising Goldman Sachs said Malaysia “must get hold of every cent” that was taken out of the country by either the leaders or those complicit in this action.
“We need to go to due process, but if they are prepared to negotiate, they have to return about US$600 million of the fees and commissions,” he said in an interview with Bloomberg Television.
