Counsel Farah Shuhadah Razali who represented Shahrir told reporters this today after the case management on the matter in the chambers of High Court deputy registrar Catherine Nicholas, which was also attended by counsel Priscilla Tan who was acting for Synergy.

Farah said the application to strike out the suit was filed last week on grounds that the plaintiff (Synergy) did not follow procedure and had no basis to seek compensation of RM100 million from the defendant (Shahrir).

“The plaintiff also applied to strike out the defence filed by the defendant (Shahrir). At the same time, my client has applied to amend his statement of defence,” she said, adding that further management of the case had been fixed for Oct 1.

On June 4, Synergy filed a suit against Shahrir who was then Felda chairman, for allegedly making several defamatory statements between December 2017 and March 2018 which were published by the mass media and reposted on Facebook, YouTube and various news portals.

According to the statement of claims, the plaintiff alleged that the statements had tarnished its reputation and caused it to lose several projects it was working on.

The company is seeking an injunction order to prevent the defendant from republishing the statements, as well as compensation of RM100 million, benefits, costs and other suitable reliefs.