Ganesh Sahathevan

by Ganesh Sahathevan  In the glory days of the  now ended brotherly relationship between the Malaysian Government and Abu Dhabi , Abu Dhabi's Mudabala was awarded the exploration Block SK 320,where it has since discovered a commercial quantity of gas. Mudabala is soon to be merged with Abu Dhabi's other investment arm, IPIC , and that discovery will form part of the merged assets. Of course, IPIC is also suing the Malaysian Government for some USD 7.5 billion in loses incurred from bailing out Malaysia's 1MDB. Meanwhile, in what appears to be another part of a series of financial deals with China, entered into in order to cover 1 MDB's losses  and cure the financial volatility that has come with it,Malaysia's PM Najib seems to  have surrendered control over yet another bit of Malaysia, James Shoal, w hich lies just south of the IPIC/Mudabala SK 320 amd Deepwater Block SK2B. As the Wall Street Journal noted in 2014 when the SK 320 discovery was made : There have bee...

by Ganesh Sahathevan There is likely to be more than one AMBank employee who is aware of this and related transactions ANZ's former CEO Mike Smith who led the bank's Asian expansion would know from the time he spent at HSBC in Kuala Lumpur that  Malaysians in general are always (and I mean always) on the look out for a deal to at least supplement meager incomes, if not get rich quick. Given that deal making propensity ,news of the the SEC's recently reported USD 22 million payout (RM 88 million) to a whistle blower  ,the largest this year and second only to its record payout of USD 30 million (RM 120 million)  will prove too much for AMBank staff to resist. Given the central role that AMBank and its ANZ led management played in the 1 MDB theft, which the US Justice Department described as the biggest case of kleptocracy ,fraud and theft it has ever seen, AMBank staff can be expected to have already done the math and determined that speaking to the SEC might well set them ...

by Ganesh Sahathevan The Department of Employment and at least one  JobActive contractor have been found to be in breach of the Department's own rules and regulations with regards the Work For The Dole Scheme.  Job Plans containing compulsory WFD requirements may be illegal, and job seekers may be entitled to compensation for any hours worked in compliance with the illegal Job Plans. In one instance a Jobplan was determined by Centrelink to be illegal because the job seeker was not entitled to the full New Start Allowance,and therefore not required to participate in a WFD  activity. Other instances of likely illegality include cases where  job seekers have been  placed in WFD  assignments regardless of whether the activity has any relevance to  finding  work,despite the fact that  the Department Of Employment  explicitly requires that WFD  assignments be directly relevant to the job seeking effort. While the Work For The Dole Scheme...

COMMENT This Reuters article provides an example that employees at 1MDB and related companies will find useful. Contacting the SEC is a simple matter of sending an email.  U.S. SEC paid $3.75 million to BHP Billiton whistleblower: report The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission paid a BHP Billiton ( BHP.AX ) ( BLT.L ) insider $3.75 million for detailed information in an investigation into alleged bribery of Asian and African officials, the Australian Financial Review reported on Monday. Citing legal sources, the newspaper report said it was the first time an employee of an Australian company had received a U.S. whistleblower bounty. BHP last year settled the SEC case, paying $25 million to resolve charges it violated a U.S. anti-bribery law by failing to properly monitor a program in which it paid for dozens of foreign government officials to attend the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. The Australian Financial Review said it did not spell out the evidence that the whistleblower disclos...

by Ganesh Sahathevan  Readers of this blog will be aware that Linkedin profiles have proven to be a goldmine for open source information .So, it is not without irony that it can now be reported that the Linkedin profile of one Nicholas "Nic" Bolto  reveals that his company Full Support Pty Ltd manages the JobActive contractor Olympus Solutions,  an assignment which includes   "value rediscovery for Bupa, Opal Aged Care, The Salvation Army and the Seventh-day Adventist Church." As previously reported, Olympus  and its sole shareholder or member , Ability Options Ltd are already  at the centre of a Centrelink client breach of privacy . Nicholas Bolto Managing Director at Full Support Managing Director Full Support May 1999  – Present (17 years 4 months) Melbourne, Australia Consulting on change management, communications, business development and identity management projects, Full Support has provided management and support services to government, n...

by Ganesh Sahathevan  An extract from the US DOJ 1 MDB indictment that implicated Najib Razak It has been previously noted on this blog that  The Wall Street Journal has reported : Abu Dhabi authorities have arrested Khadem Al Qubaisi, who authorities say is a key figure in an alleged multibillion-dollar fraud related to a Malaysian sovereign-wealth fund, according to people familiar with the matter.The arrest last week was made in relation to an Abu Dhabi investigation into fraud and corruption, which includes Mr. Qubaisi’s alleged role in the 1Malaysia Development Bhd.,  known as 1MDB , affair, the people said. Qubaisi is named in the US DOJ 1 MDB indictment.Rather than wade through reams and reams of legalese, readers will probably find the rather direct presentation of the facts by Sarawak Report easier to  digest: Devastatingly, the DOJ then says that from Blackstone the money was passed on to Najib and his accomplices : DOJ say it straight – Malaysian Official ...

by Ganesh Sahathevan Najib & Khadem forever joined Photo courtesy of Malaysia Chronicle, currently under DDOS attack The Wall Street Journal has reported : Abu Dhabi authorities have arrested Khadem Al Qubaisi, who authorities say is a key figure in an alleged multibillion-dollar fraud related to a Malaysian sovereign-wealth fund, according to people familiar with the matter.The arrest last week was made in relation to an Abu Dhabi investigation into fraud and corruption, which includes Mr. Qubaisi’s alleged role in the 1Malaysia Development Bhd., known as 1MDB , affair, the people said. Among the transactions Khadem is said to have gained from is a commission payment funded out of loans  taken by 1 MDB, the proceeds  meant to be used to finance the purchase of power assets,  none held in Khadem's name and/or that of IPIC, the Abu Dhabi SWF which he led as managing director. The payment of commisison , said to amount to some USD 21 million, was reported by the investi...