ANZ, one of Australia’s biggest banks, has executives working in senior management and sitting on the board of AmBank, The Australian reports.
However, ANZ did say that it was concerned over “recent issues” involving AmBank. The Australian report said ANZ was trying to divest its shares in AmBank.
Najib has denied any wrongdoing and in January, Attorney-General Mohamad Apandi Ali cleared him of any criminal offence.
The ANZ has been a major shareholder in Malaysia’s AmBank for almost 10 years, after buying a 24.9 per cent stake in 2006.
ABC’s Four Corners programme reported that bank documents seen by it show that between January 13, 2011, and April 10, 2013, more than $US1b had been deposited in instalments into Najib’s personal AmBank accounts, held under the name Mr X, from the Saudi Arabian government, a Saudi prince and two Virgin Islands companies.
The Australian reported that last November, AmBank paid a RM53.7 million fine after Bank Negara found it had breached anti-money-laundering and counter-terrorism finance obligations in relation to “politically exposed persons.”
The report added: “Yet the ANZ has repeatedly refused to say what, if any action, it took as a major shareholder with key appointments in senior probity, auditing and management positions within AmBank in the face of obviously suspect activity.”
Meanwhile, ANZ said as a minority shareholder, it was not involved and not permitted to be involved in the day-to-day operations of AmBank and that ANZ nominated executives do not report to ANZ but to AmBank.
“Naturally, ANZ is very concerned by the recent issues involving AmBank. Both ANZ-nominated directors and nominated employees of AmBank are, however, subject to significant restrictions under Malaysian law both as a listed company and under banking, privacy and other laws in Malaysia relating to operational matters and to specific accounts .”
The Australian said ANZ’s new chief executive Shayne Elliott sat on the AmBank board until October, when he stepped down citing “additional workload commitments” and that until January last year, AmBank was run by Ashok Ramamurthy, a ANZ veteran who returned to ANZ’s Melbourne headquarters to work on “special projects”.
ANZ told The Australian that Ramamurthy “co-operated fully with any regulator’s inquiry into 1MDB”.
The report added: “ANZ is understood to have been trying to divest its stake in the Malaysian bank since at least September — one month after tens of thousands of Malaysians staged street protests over the scandal.”