The summit, which runs from March 17 to 18, is being held in Australia for the first time.
According to SMH, it would be a bitter blow to the Australian government if Prime Minister Najib Razak were to pull out of the summit, which he is expected to attend.
Canberra considers Najib a close ally in the fight against extremism, and in cooperation over counter-terrorism matters.
The report added that Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte had already withdrawn from the summit, citing commitments at home, and that there was a possibility that Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen might also pull out fearing possible criticism of his human rights record at the event.
According to SMH, Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull declined to take any questions about his son’s comments on the 1MDB-Goldman Sachs deal when asked about it today.
“No. No. No. I’m not going to, I’m not going to comment on it,” he was quoted as saying.
Yesterday, The Australian reported that Alex had claimed he was sidelined at Goldman Sachs after he raised questions about deals involving 1MDB.
According to the report, in 2012 and 2013, Alex was working in Singapore at Goldman Sachs when the organisation raised bonds for 1MDB worth US$6 billion. Alex, however, was not involved in the transactions.
Alex told The Australian he raised concerns with colleagues about the high price and the lack of clarity in offer documents about the use of the funds.
He said when the 1MDB deal was done with Goldman, he sent an email to some of his colleagues asking what was going on. “The pricing is nuts, what is the use of funds?” he had asked.
For doing so, he claimed, he received a “talking-to” by the firm’s compliance officials. As a result, he said, he was “b-tracked”.
Alex worked for Goldman Sachs’ special situations division from 2010 to 2014, when he resigned to start his own Singapore-based hedge fund, Keshik Capital.
SMH said Alex declined to comment on the article by The Australian, maintaining that he had been misquoted.
But SMH noted that comments similar to those in The Australian had appeared earlier this month – from a user by the name of Alex Turnbull – on a blog, realpolitikasia.
“I called out the insane pricing and bizarre structure at [Goldman Sachs] when the deal was done and got yelled at by compliance for casting doubt on the integrity of PFI, the group that did the deal,” a user claiming to be Alex Turnbull wrote.
“As a result I was ‘b-tracked’ and resigned. This will all come out in a book in September by Tom Wright at the WSJ.”
SMH said Wright’s book, called the “Billion Dollar Whale”, is co-authored with Wall Street Journal journalist Bradley Hope.
The report said Alex declined to comment on the blog or whether he would take legal action against it or The Australian.
Goldman Sachs likewise refused to comment on the allegations made by Alex. However, SMH said the company did not refute claims that Alex had communicated with colleagues over his misgivings about the debt funding being raised for 1MDB.
Goldman not happy ‘cos I questioned 1MDB deals, says Turnbull’s son