KUALA LUMPUR (Nov 5): The hearing of the Malaysian government's RM250 million suit against National Feedlot Corp Sdn Bhd (NFCorp), its chairman Datuk Seri Dr Mohamad Salleh Ismail and nine others has been postponed to a date yet to be fixed due to the conditional movement control order (CMCO).

The trial was initially set to resume today before High Court judicial commissioner Anand Ponnudurai, but the CMCO implemented by the government since Oct 14 in Selangor, the Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur and Putrajaya due to rising Covid-19 cases derailed that schedule.

The postponement was confirmed by senior federal counsel Azizan Md Arshad, who represented the government in the suit.

“The parties have given their suitable dates and we are waiting for the court to decide,” he told theedgemarkets.com when contacted today.

The trial was originally supposed to resume in September with the testimony of an expert witness from PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) on the audit firm's due diligence report on NFCorp, but it was postponed at the time after one of the lawyers for NFCorp, Datuk K Kirubakaran, was hospitalised.

Under the suit, the government is seeking RM253.62 million, representing the sum owed by NFCorp, with a 2% interest from May 1, 2019.

The government is also seeking a personal declaration from Mohamad Salleh and his three children who have also been named as defendants in the case — Wan Shahinur Izran, Wan Shahinur Izmir and Wan Izzana Fatimah Zabedah — that they are personally liable for RM118 million, and that the sum will be repaid by them. Wan Shahinur and Wan Izzana were also directors of NFCorp.

The other defendants in the suit are: National Meat and Livestock Corp Sdn Bhd, Real Food Company Sdn Bhd, Meatworks Corp Sdn Bhd, Agroscience Industries Sdn Bhd, Asian Bioscience Corp Sdn Bhd and Techknowlogy Imageware (M) Sdn Bhd.