High Court judge Khadijah Idris ruled that Najib’s lawsuit against the bank and former relationship manager Joanna Yu was unsustainable as it was filed to “bolster his defence” in his previous SRC International case.
Najib was convicted on seven charges involving criminal breach of trust, money laundering and abuse of power over SRC International’s RM42 million in his account.
He was sentenced to 12 years’ jail and fined RM210 million. Both sentences were stayed pending his appeal.
“The court is of the view that the plaintiff’s (Najib’s) action was scandalous, frivolous, vexatious and an abuse of the court process,” Khatijah said.
“The facts of this case today show he only commenced the action after the prosecution in the SRC International criminal case pointed out that he never questioned or sued the banks back then.”
She also said Najib ought to have known that there were issues related to his accounts when he was interviewed by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) in 2016.
Najib also named AmIslamic Bank in the lawsuit.
The court awarded costs of RM30,000 to the bank and RM25,000 to Yu.
After the decision, Najib’s lawyer, Muhammad Shafee Abdullah, said they would appeal.
“We will file an appeal within a couple of weeks,” he said
Lawyers Yoong Sin Min and Gurdial Singh Nijar appeared for the bank and Yu, respectively.
In his suit, Najib claimed that the bank and Yu had breached their duties under banking laws, such as the Financial Services Act and the Banking and Financial Institutions Act, when it came to protecting his privacy.
He alleged that Yu communicated the details of four of his five bank accounts to fugitive financier Low Taek Jho, better known as 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 International trial, it was revealed that Yu and Low had communicated on BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) on the affairs of his accounts.
Yu had testified in the trial as a prosecution witness.
Najib had sought aggravated and special damages from Yu and the bank.