KUALA LUMPUR: The Admiralty Court yesterday opened the bids on the superyacht ‘Equanimity’ belonging to Low Taek Jho or better known Jho Low, which closed at 5pm on Wednesday after being held open for a month.
Nevertheless, lawyer S.Sitpah said the appraised value of the superyacht remained
confidential, as with the identity of the bidders, to protect the privacy of the bidders and the integrity of the process until the sale is completed.
“As part of this judicial sale process, we are not at liberty to reveal the number or value of these offers.
“The Sheriff of the High Court of Malaya has received offers.
“Now we must allow the residual process of court to see its natural course,” Sitpah said in a statement to media yesterday.
Sitpah, who is leading the legal team for the four plaintiffs, said the nature of the judicial sale
process is to preserve the confidence of the bidders that their identities and offers will not be disclosed until the sale is completed, and that this also serves to preserve confidence in the judicial sale process.
The plaintiffs are 1MDB and its subsidiaries, MDB Energy Holdings Limited and 1MDB Global Investment Limited and the government.
Sitpah said, as with any purchase of property, several more steps need to be taken, and that the next step would be communicated by the Sheriff to the bidders.
“The public, the government of Malaysia and the bidders all want a successful completion, so let us afford the confidentiality it deserves for this to happen,” Sitpah added.
Sitpah also said that the legal team was satisfied with the way the entire process has been conducted, there has been tremendous support and facilitation by the government, the Court and Burgess as Central Brokers, in this process of sale.
“Given the extremely niche, specialist and elite market, within the sort time the Equanimity was open for offer, we have received interest from around the world; Asia, Europe, Middle East and United States of America,” Sitpah said.
Also present at the proceedings before the deputy registrar was the legal team and Burgess (the bridge between the superyacht community and the Malaysian legal system and can vouch for the integrity of this sale process).
On Aug 24, the Admiralty Court granted an application by the government as well as 1MDB and the two subsidiaries to sell the Equanimity.
In the application filed on Aug 23, the four plaintiffs named the owner of the ship, Equanimity of Cayman Islands, as the defendant in the suit filed via the law firm of Jeremy Joseph & Partners.
In the notice of application, the four plaintiffs asked for the sale of the ship, bunkers, fuel, lubricants and other consumables on board to be conducted via public tender or private treaty by the Admiralty Court sheriff.
The plaintiffs wanted the sheriff to receive bids or offers for the vessel and the bunkers and for the purchase price to be paid to the sheriff in US dollars or euros or ringgit.
They said the proceeds of the sale of the vessel should be paid into court and placed in a bank account in Malaysia as approved by the Accountant-General.
The superyacht was brought to Port Klang on Aug 7 after the Indonesian authorities handed it over to Malaysia.
It was seized off Bali in February at the request of the US authorities as part of the corruption investigation
launched by the US Department of Justice (DoJ) into 1MDB. — Bernama