Court To Decide On Tuesday Whether To Release Gold Investment Company's Frozen Assets

KUALA LUMPUR: The Sessions Court here fixed May 21 to decide whether to release the assets of a gold investment company, Genneva Sdn Bhd, to its three directors and one former director who were acquitted yesterday of illegal money laundering and illegal deposit-taking.

Source from (Bernama): http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v7/ge/newsgeneral.php?id=950534
Published: May 19, 2013

Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) had frozen the assets totalling more than RM100 million under the Banking and Financial Institution Act following their indictment for 224 charges of illegal money laundering and five charges of receiving deposits without a licence.

Judge Datuk Rozana Ali Yusuff set the date following an application by Bank Negara Deputy Public Prosecutor Mardziatun Nisa Ahamadul Kabir to suspend the release of the assets pending disposal of the prosecution’s appeal filed this morning (yesterday) against the acquittal.

Mardziatun said should the High Court allow the appeal, there would then be no guarantee that the investors would get their money back.

“The appeal will become academic if the suspension is rejected,” she said, submitting further that the application was to protect the interest of the investors involved.

However, Counsel Mohamed Haniff Khatri Abdulla who represented the three directors, Ng Poh Weng, 63, Marcus Yee Yuen Seng, 61, and Chin Wai Leong, 37, submitted that there were two sets of accounts in the case.

One was the directors’ accounts, of which there was no evidence that they contained investors’ money, and the company’s account which justifiably showed the amount to be business-derived earnings.

Ng was charged with 93 counts, Yee, 40 counts, Chin, 61 counts, and former Genneva Sdn Bhd director Liew Chee Wah, 30 counts of illegal money laundering.

They are alleged to have committed the offences at Public Bank Berhad, Kuala Lumpur branch, Menara Public Bank, 146, Jalan Ampang between July 2008 and June 2009.

They were also charged with five counts of illegally receiving deposits from the public, allegedly committed in Jalan Kuchai Maju 6, off Jalan Kuchai Lama between November 2008 and July 2009.
Liew, 59, was represented by Counsel Keppy Wong. — Bernama