The U.S. Department of Justice says Friday's conviction of Roger Ng is a triumph for the rule of law and the people of Malaysia
A decade on, the U.S. justice system seems to have usurped the world's leading role in bringing the key perpetrators of Malaysia's 1MDB case to account.
A federal jury on Friday convicted the former Goldman Sachs banker Roger Ng for receiving more than $35 million U.S. dollars in kickbacks from a widespread, international scheme to siphon money out of the Malaysian investment development fund. According to the U.S. Attorney's Office, the defendant and his partners did not see the fund «as an entity to do good for the people of Malaysia» but as a way to enrich themselves.
«Today’s verdict is a victory for not only the rule of law but also for the people of Malaysia for whom the fund was supposed to help, by raising money for projects to develop their country’s economy,» the U.S. Attorney Breon Peace said.
Bond Transactions
The jury agreed that the defendant had received the kickbacks from his activities in 2012 and 2013 in getting three bond transactions approved by bypassing Goldman Sach's internal controls, after which he bought New York property, art, jewelry, and funded the now eponymous Wolf of Wall Street film. According to numerous media reports, he may now face up to 30 years in prison.
To wit, the 1MDB scandal has embroiled regulators and courts worldwide while exacting a high price on Swiss finance by essentially shuttering BSI and Falcon Bank.
But the U.S. justice system seems to trundle on indefatigably while many of the key jurisdictions involved, including Switzerland and Singapore, concluded proceedings years ago. 1MDB, after Petrobras and Russia, is still billeted as the third most important so-called reward target of the Treasury's kleptocracy program.
Little Sense of Alacrity
The problem with all this is that none of it is happening in Malaysia itself. Although the country has announced plentiful civil suits large and wide against the banks, entities, and individuals connected to 1 MDB, there is by no means the same sense of alacrity.
But that is relatively easy to explain why. It is because of Najib Razak, the former Prime Minister of Malaysia. His government established 1MDB and he was convicted by Malaysian courts to a 12-year jail sentence for it, a sentence that he is currently appealing.
He also remains a member of parliament and has claimed to Reuters that his potential disqualification from the next election was subject to interpretation. His party recently won a large, commanding victory in Johor, a major state election, after winning in Malacca, another state, last year.
Najib had apparently been pulling the largest crowds during the Johor campaign. The many twists and turns, and comebacks, in Malaysia's political history, have turned a full circle. They draw seemingly interesting parallels with the U.S. itself. It seems to be much easier to hang another country's populists to dry than to deal with your own, the rule of law notwithstanding.
