Court of Appeal allows 1MDB to file fresh affidavit in Rosmah injunction case

The Court of Appeal has allowed 1MDB and 10 other plaintiffs to introduce fresh affidavit evidence in their bid to obtain freezing and proprietary injunctions against Rosmah Mansor over the alleged misappropriation of US$346 million.

A three-member bench chaired by Justice Alwi Abdul Wahab, with Justices Ismail Brahim and Leonard David Shim, unanimously allowed the appeal against a High Court decision rejecting their application to file a further affidavit by former second defendant Shabnam Naraindas Daswani.

Delivering the decision, Shim said the High Court judge exercised his discretion based on the wrong legal principles.

He said the application for leave, filed on June 20, 2025, was made before written submissions in the injunction proceedings were complete. The final written submissions were only filed on July 18 that year.

The court also accepted that the plaintiffs had provided sufficient reasons for the delay, noting that Shabnam only agreed to provide a first-hand account after the plaintiffs discontinued their claim against her under a consent order on April 9, 2025.

Shim said the preparation of her 319-page affidavit, accompanied by eight volumes of documentary exhibits, would reasonably have required considerable time.

The exhibits included vendors’ invoices, correspondence relating to luxury goods purchases, communications involving fugitive businessman Low Taek Jho and his associate Eric Tan, and photographs of the items.

The plaintiffs allege that more than 12,000 luxury items, including jewellery, watches and handbags, were acquired using funds misappropriated from 1MDB and channelled through eight offshore entities in the British Virgin Islands and Seychelles.

The bench said the affidavit was relevant to establishing that there was a serious issue to be tried and a risk of asset dissipation, as well as addressing Rosmah’s contention that the luxury goods were gifts from third parties.

It added that any prejudice to Rosmah could be addressed through costs and by giving her sufficient time to respond.

Conversely, refusing the application would cause greater injustice to the plaintiffs by preventing them from presenting evidence that was obtained only after the consent order with Shabnam.

The bench set aside the High Court’s decision and ordered Rosmah to pay RM30,000 in costs.

The ruling does not determine the merits of the underlying injunction applications.

Lim Chee Wee, Nathalie Ker and Henna Nikita Sanghvi appeared for the plaintiffs, while Rajan Navaratnam, Sheena Sebastian and Dinesh Nandrajog represented Rosmah.

Rajan said he had instructions from his client to file for leave to appeal to the Federal Court.

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