What "the untold MAS story" did not tell? (Part 6)

The first part of the lyrics sings as:

And now, the end is near,
And so I face the final curtain.
My friends, I'll say it clear;
I'll state my case of which I'm certain.

Some readers too have been showing their impatience. But this blogger have to do it "My Way".

The points have to be laid out with clarity and detailed. The slandering group had a one year lead to in-grain into the public's mind that MAS lost RM8 billion under Tan Sri Tajuddin Ramli.

They had the time to make all sorts of stories, to link this person and that person, cooking up wild allegations, disjointed events become one, and to smear the important institutions of Government; the Police, Attorney General office as part of judiciary system, and MACC.

No worry. For we have come to the final curtain. This "final curtain" of facts is the Award of the Geneva-based International Court of Arbitration between ACL and MAS.

After this, it is the juicy and revealing part and comments on the present day situation of MAS. We have an important angle on why MAS could not perform. It is not far from sight and within reach.

In the meanwhile, read Gunasegaran's article in The Star here on MAS. This blogger will be leading in that direction.

Hahn Cargo Airport

On 13/25 November 1999, ACL and MAS entered into a strategic agreement ("ACL Agreement") to migrate and maintain its hub for European cargo-handling operations of the carrier at a new handling facilities at an airport in Hahn.

MAS was in this blogger's radar back then. Hahn was understood then to be a former NATO military airbase located about 120 km from Frankfurt that was turned into a civilian airport known today as Frankfurt-Hahn Airport.

As the investors were made to understand back then in the late 90s, local authority of the district of Rhineland-Palatinate offered Tajuddin to run and operate the cargo facility.

This blogger could not recall exactly the terms offered but it was believed to be attractive with the German authorities willing to cough money to invest in the facility, giving exclusivity over a long period of time, MAS had first option, etc.

Back then, The Star wrote about this venture being along the concept of spine and spoke. Not a hub like Singapore, but spine and spoke of air transportation.

When one thinks of spine, think of the spine of a football team. This spine will be from Kuala Lumpur to Hahn-Frankfurt. A spoke is something that looks like bicycle wheels and could mean transportation of products emanating out from Hahn to the nearby area.

But then Tajuddin left MAS in February 2001. The ACL contract was canceled in July 2001. And the knives were out by vindictive MAS top management and repulsive new political master to go and pin something on him.

However, from then till today, no one including the conniving lawyer, Rosli Dahalan and his crooked cop connection could not pin anything on Tajuddin, except for the allegation of conflict of interest on the Hahn deal.

When the ACL Agreement was canceled, there was dispute between ACL and MAS.

ACL claimed MAS cannot cancel the contract and had canceled the contract due to an alliance built between MAS and KLM.

MAS claimed they could because there were misrepresentation. Hahn Airport deal turned out to be commercially not viable and there were allegation of collusion between Uwe Beck of ACL and Ralph Gotz of MAS to the detriment of MAS. The second issue being linked to allegation of conflict of interest by Tajuddin.

ICC

After a long legal struggle, both parties, ACL and MAS decided to go for arbitration. The place for arbitration for such type of commercial deals is the ICC in Geneva. The ICC arbitrate the case and looked at the issue from the perspective of both Swiss and Malaysian law.

Without sparing any cost, MAS presented their case and claimed of non-disclosure of interest by Tajuddin and the ACL Agreement was grossly unfair for MAS. No stone was left unturned and MAS's lawyers put up the strongest case.

Their allegations of Tajuddin's non disclosure, conflict of interest, breach of fiduciary duty and fraud to the ICC was thrown out.

MAS lost.




In addition, they made no objection or appeal and accepted the decision of ICC.


Rosli Dahlan was acting as counsel for MAS and headed the team of lawyers.

But despite losing the case, he and MAS's General Counsel and now EVP, Dr Wafi Nazrin Tan Sri Abdul Hamid are still pursuing the same issue after spending millions for ICC Arbitration and accepting the award decision.

The reason being that the Tribunal express the opinion that "Ralph Gotz, Tajuddin, Wan Aishah and Wan Malek each had potential conflict of interests towards MAS."

They refuse to accept the case for conflict of interest and related offenses were weak. The Board members of MAS were dumb and negligent.

Fair Agreement

MAS could not show that the Agreement was as described in the award document, "inherently disadvatageous."

Firstly, the decision were as described in the award document, "taken and endorsed by the MAS board as a collective decision and not as an individual initiative which would have been imposed on the board."

Secondly, MAS' General Counsel, Baharom Yatim, testfied that he as described in the award document, "was in the position of negotiating as an independent party"

Most importantly, an analysis of the terms on ten year term, allocation of risks between the parties, ground-handling fees, renegotiation and adaptation clauses, delay to commence on the part of MAS, and viability of Hahn airport, the Tribunal did not find the ACL Agreement as unfair and ACL conduct of business as fair to MAS.

Conflict of Interest

On the conflict of interest issue, none among the uninterested members of the board and senior managers at the Tiara Board meeting of August 2000 made any objections or raised any questions in this respect.

In a MAS board meeting in November 2000, Tajuddin, Wan Aishah and Wan Malek mentioned of their interest in Naluri Berhad.

Both MAS and Tiara board were informed of the existense of the ACL Agreement. The board was told of Naluri was ACL's majority shareholder. Tajuddin, Wan Malek, and Wan Aishah declared their interest in Naluri.

The Tribunal decided that the disclosure by Tajuddin, Wan Aishah, Wan Malek, and Ralph Gotz were as described in the award document, "sufficient to put MAS's Board on notice of the four's interest in the ACL Agreement".

MAS did ratify the Agreement.

If the agreement could not be voided, it means there were sufficient notice of interest. For Rosli and MAS to make a case against Tajuddin based on the technicality of law, it just show how low these people were.

In spirit, Tajuddin had made his necessary disclosure. Are these people dumb not to know who Naluri is?

This is but an ungentlemenly conduct and an act suspiciously filled with vengence and vendetta.

ICC had dismissed all of MAS's counterclaim and clear Tajuddin of any wrongdoing. Their insistence on pursuing Tajuddin and their conduct to slander Tajuddin when the authorities refuse to heed them only shows their bad intention.

This blogger wonder.

With the case being arguably crystal clear, why was it that the Board of Directors of MAS, Board of Directors of Khazanah and Minister in charge not appreciate there is no more case? Did Rosli Dahalan and Dr Wafi Nazrin honestly gave them the true picture?

Another person left out and that is the adviser of MAS, the former Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi. Be sure to brief him when he is awake.

The RM8 billion loss?

The slandering group started the charade by accusing Tajuddin of losing RM8 billion at MAS. Till today, no one could prove it.

The historical audited profit and loss account does not show.

Donplaypuk, an akauntan pencen commented the said RM8 billion involves the asset loss for the Wide Asset Unbundling. But that's only RM5 billion!

Everytime you remove RM5 billion from the asset side, you remove RM5 billion from the liabilities side.

Some claimed there was manipulation in depreciation policy. OK so?

Say asset is RM5 billion and depreciation policy changed from 10 to 20 years. That is still only RM250 million a year and RM2.5 billion for 10 years for easy calculation of Tajuddin's tenure. That is still short of RM5.5 billion.

Some claimed the loss of RM8 billion was from Government buying back MAS's shares from Tajuddin. Is the shares worth zero?

Did they take into account that Tajuddin bought MAS' s shares from Bank Negara Malaysia, because of Tan Sri Nor Yakcop big time fumble in foreign exchange market, at RM8 per share when the shares were traded at around RM4 per share?

This is a deviation from the subject. The accusation is MAS accumulated losses in the tune of RM8 billion during the time of Tajuddin.

Dato Ramli Yusoff wrot ethat in his letter to the former Prime Minister who is now MAS adviser.

The slandering groups were asking, shouting and demanding every other institution to investigate this and that on Tajuddin. However, having MAS as client to one of them, with all the information in the company's books and computers, they could not present anything to prove this important allegations.

Salahuddin Ayub was first to make it an issue. He claims he was well informed by a source.

He better learn up accounting and business finance, because the time will come where he will have to answer for it or prove it. Unless an apology coming from Salahuddin and Harakah, Tajuddin should sue their pants out.

The rest should get ready too.