KUALA LUMPUR (Sept 20): The origin of US$185 million pumped by PetroSaudi International Ltd (PSI) into its wholly owned subsidiary PetroSaudi Oil Services Ltd (PSOSL) was 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB), the High Court was told on Tuesday (Sept 20).

Deputy public prosecutor Norinna Bahadun said this during submissions of the prosecution's bid to seek a court order to prohibit PSI founder and chief executive officer Tarek Obaid and others from using over US$340 million of alleged 1MDB money.

"The origin of the US$185 million was the joint venture company (JVCo) 1MDB-PetroSaudi. The origin of [funds for the] 1MDB-[PSI] JVCo is 1MDB. The money trail comes from [the] 1MDB-[PSI] JVCo," she contended.

The JVCo was set up in 2010.

She argued that the US$185 million transferred was for, among others, the purchase of drill ship Discoverer in January 2010. PetroSaudi Oil Services (Venezuela) Ltd — a subsidiary of PSOSL — was later created and then entered into a drilling contract with state-owned Petroleos de Venezuela SA (PDVSA).

"We have seen in the consideration of PDVSA in their minutes, we have seen this in the drilling contract proper... and we know the origin of the PSOSL monies. The origin is 1MDB funds.

"1MDB has been washed away, kicked to the curb so far as PSI Group is concerned. Now we are talking about the bubble of their group and they rely on each other, that the parent company is PSOSL," she argued.

"It is our submission that these interrelated parties and obligations make the funds of the subject matter of our application intermingled with the PSOSL money and the success of the (drilling) contract. It would not come into place had it not been for constraint reference of PSOSL," she argued.

She contended that the culmination of the funds in the prosecution's application was a "fruition" of all the efforts and would not be possible from the injection of money from PSI to PSOSL.

"The subject matter ought to be restrained and prohibited from [using the funds]. We have demonstrated how the money trail had gone into how it was filtered down on the creation of the (drilling) contract," she said.

Besides Tarek, the other respondents in this application are PSI, PetroSaudi Oil Services (Venezuela), law firm Clyde & Co LLP and Temple Fiduciary Services Ltd.

The government is seeking a total of US$340 million from PSI. In addition, it is also seeking unspecified sums that were deposited under an intermediate account name, Temple Fiduciary, at Barclays Bank in the UK.

The application was filed under Section 53 of the Anti-Money Laundering, Anti-Terrorism Financing and Proceeds of Unlawful Activities Act.

Tarek is represented by Datuk Yusof Zainal Abiden, while PSI, PSOSL and Temple Fiduciary are represented by Alex Tan.

The application comes after Malaysia levelled charges in February 2020 on Tarek, PSI director Patrick Mahony, along with fugitive Malaysian businessman Low Taek Jho — better known as Jho Low — for engaging in a criminal conspiracy involving former prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak and 1MDB.

According to the charge sheet, the criminal conspiracy involved the commission of an offence by Najib using his position as prime minister, finance minister and 1MDB advisory board chairman to seek gratification for himself involving a monetary sum of RM60.63 million.

Previously, it was reported that in September 2020 the US Department of Justice (DOJ) had also filed a similar application to seek US$300 million in additional assets allegedly associated with the multibillion-dollar 1MDB scandal, which it had traced to the escrow account in the UK.

The proceedings before Judicial Commissioner Datuk Ahmad Shahrir Mohd Salleh continue.

https://www.theedgemarkets.com/article/us185m-pumped-psosl-came-1mdb-says-prosecution