The ex-prime minister’s lawyer, Muhammad Farhan Muhammad Shafee, said Yu claimed the suit was an abuse of process and to bolster Najib’s defence in the on-going SRC International corruption trial.
Farhan said the application was filed recently and a copy of the court papers was served to them yesterday.
Yu had also filed a certificate of urgency to have case management heard today as she is scheduled to file her defence by Friday.
“We will be responding to the striking-out application as Yu has to explain her action,” Farhan told reporters after case management before judge Ahmad Kamil Md Shahid.
The next case management has been fixed on Feb 4 before judge Khadijah Idrus, who is scheduled to hear the suit.
Yu was a prosecution witness but the defence had taken the position that she was working with fugitive financier Low Taek Jho, better known as Jho Low, in manipulating Najib’s accounts.
Najib, in his suit filed last December, claimed that Yu and the bank had breached their duties under banking laws, such as the Financial Services Act and the Banking and Financial Institution Act, to protect his privacy.
Besides Yu, he named AmIslamic Bank and AmBank Group in his lawsuit.
Najib alleged that Yu had communicated the details of four of his five bank accounts to Jho Low, who he said was not the authorised person to manage his accounts.
He claimed that Yu was acting on Low’s advice such as using alternative names for all his accounts ending with the numbers 694, 880, 898 and 906, seeking advice on approving cheques under these four accounts, as well as taking active steps to hide the bank accounts’ statements from him.
Najib also said that during the course of his SRC trial, it was revealed that Yu and Low had communicated on BlackBerry Messenger, or BBM, on the affairs of his accounts.
“Due to the negligence of the bank and Yu in protecting the accounts’ privacy, the unauthorised individual had manipulated the plaintiff’s accounts without his knowledge.
“This had caused political attacks against the account holder and subsequently the account holder was charged under the Malaysia Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) Act, the Penal Code and the Anti-Money Laundering, Anti-Terrorism Financing and Proceeds of Unlawful Activities Act, or Amla, in the SRC case,” Najib said, referring to his ongoing trial.
Najib is seeking aggravated and special damages from Yu and the bank.