PUTRAJAYA (April 30): The Court of Appeal today granted a stay application by four senior executives of Deleum Primera Sdn Bhd (DPSB) over a suit filed against them by the company, pending their appeal for the recusal of the High Court judge presiding over the case.
Justice Datuk Lee Swee Seng, who led the bench, allowed the stay application after hearing submissions from counsel Mohd Haniff Khatri Abdulla, who appeared for the four, namely Mazrin Ramli, Khairulazmi Mohamad Karudin, Noor Azlina Zakaria and Muhammad Hafiz Abd Aziz.
Meanwhile, counsel Nathalie Ker Si Min appeared with Kelvin Seah for Deleum Primera.
Haniff in applying for the stay claimed that High Court Judicial Commissioner Ong Chee Kwan was dragged into the arena of dispute to cover up the weakness of the company's case when it granted the necessary orders that it sought before amendments to the Bahasa Malaysia affidavits are made.
However, Justice Lee ruled that the stay given today would not affect Deleum Primera's ex parte order on having obtained the Mareva injunction granted by the High Court that freezes assets of the defendants, pending the outcome of this legal case.
Deleum Primera also secured an Anton Pillar order against all defendants to seek further evidence in respect of the purported illegal scheme, which remains intact despite the stay granted.
Haniff also gave an undertaking that it will withdraw his clients' application to strike out the suit pending the outcome of the appeal on the judicial commissioner's recusal.
The other two judges who unanimously allowed the stay were Justices Datuk Mohd Sofian Abdul Razak and Datuk See Mee Chun.
The stay granted today was after High Court Judicial Commissioner Ong dismissed Haniff's stay application last week.
The appellate court has yet to fix a date to hear the four's appeal to recuse Ong. However, Ong has fixed May 5 for case management of the case.
On March 9, it was reported that Ong dismissed an application put up by the four, along with two other companies, namely Synergy Spectacular Sdn Bhd and Hydra Admiral Sdn Bhd, which are suppliers of Deleum Primera, and ordered them to pay RM15,000 costs to Deleum Primera.
Deleum Primera, which is 60%-owned by Deleum Bhd, filed the RM19.88 million civil suit against the six and four others, including Petronas Carigali Sdn Bhd executives, last November for purportedly involving themselves in a scheme to swindle the company.
The company also lodged a report with the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) over the alleged illegal scheme last Nov 25.
So far, two senior executives working for Deleum Primera have been interviewed by the MACC in its investigation into the scheme. It is understood that the MACC investigation also covers potential involvement of Deleum's top management and executives of both Deleum Primera and Petronas Carigali.
In a Dec 14 report, The Edge Malaysia weekly, citing sources, wrote that the MACC was following closely the money trail from Petronas Carigali through Deleum Primera and its subcontractors, and into Petronas Carigali executives, to understand the modus operandi involved in the illegal scheme as it suspected it was a wider scheme involving the Petronas subsidiary and its main contractors through their subcontractors.
It was understood that Petronas Carigali had taken action against its staff, based on a message from Petroliam Nasional Bhd (Petronas) president and group chief executive officer (CEO) Tengku Muhammad Taufik Tengku Aziz, who noted that an internal probe was being conducted.
Deleum Primera, however, has denied any involvement of the company's top management in the scheme. It also denied any alleged understating of the company's profits for the financial year ended Dec 31, 2019 (FY19) and any other allegations of false accounting.