TIMBER-BASED NWP Holdings Bhd and its three wholly-owned subsidiaries have launched legal action against its managing director Datuk Seri Kee Soon Ling and independent non-executive director (INED) Yew Onn Chong over fraudulent transactions undertaken by them from 2016 to 2021.
Yesterday (Jan 17), the plaintiffs who include NWP O&M Sdn Bhd, NWP Aquatech Sdn Bhd and NWP Builder Sdn Bhd filed a writ and statement of claim at the High Court via solicitors Chong + Kheng Hoe after the new management discover series of fraudulent transactions undertaken by Kee and Yew which resulted in NWP and its subsidiaries suffered loss and damages.
Moreover, both defendants had permitted and/or authorised the fraudulent transactions to be recorded and captured in the company’s consolidated financial statements (encompassing its financial year end 2016-2021) which were submitted and announced to Bursa Malaysia.
Under the lawsuit, NWP and its subsidiaries are seeking RM6.5 mil in total damages from the defendants as well as an order to bar them from being a director of the company for five years in addition to restraining them from exercising the voting rights.
In the meantime, NWP and its subsidiaries had filed an application for interim order against both defendants.
ROD breaches
In an unrelated development, NWP had on Jan 16 discovered that its record of depositors (ROD) as of Jan 10 had been leaked to third parties without the company’s knowledge, consent and authorisation.
As per the company’s record, NWP said it had never received any request for such ROD from the third parties or had authorised the furnishing of the ROD to any of the third parties.
This prompted the company to commence investigation as to how and in what manner the third parties had the full copy of the ROD.
In the interim, NWP had written to One Capital Market Services Sdn Bhd, Affin Hwang Nominees (Tempatan) Sdn Bhd (pledged securities account for Tan Lik Houe) and Maybank Nominees (Tempatan) Sdn Bhd (ledged securities account for Chang Huan Soon) to demand for written explanation.
The company will also engage with the regulators and authorities for further action upon completion of the investigation.
“To preserve the integrity of the ROD, NWP had resolved to terminate the service of One Capital Market Services with immediate effect whereby a separate announcement will be made in due course,” NWP pointed out in a media statement.
“The company wishes to emphasise that its ROD contains personal information of its members such as full name, CDS account number, identity card (IC) number and address.”
This issue came to light following an announcement dated Dec whereby one Datuk Tan Lik Houe claimed in a Bursa Malaysia filing under “Notice of Interest – Substantial Shareholder (Section 137 of CA 2016)” that he is a registered holder of 26.61 million NWP shares.
“NWP had discovered that the said notice is false and misleading as Tan had never been the registered holder of the shares,” noted the company. “As such, the company had instructed its solicitors to demand Tan to rectify the notice.”
As any request, handling and furnishing of the ROD is governed by Securities Industry (Central Depositories) Act 1991, NWP added that it shall take stern action against anyone for violation of the law.
At the close of yesterday’s trading, NWP was down 2.5 sen or 12.5% to 17.5 sen with 22.99 million shares traded, thus valuing the company at RM92 mil. – Jan 18, 2022
