Lawyer Sitpah Selvaratnam said the court here made the order in allowing judgment in default against the registered owner of the vessel, which has been berthed in Port Klang since August.
“In effect, the court held that the ship belonged to the Malaysian government because 1MDB money was used to purchase it,” she told reporters after obtaining the judgment in the chambers of judicial commissioner Khajidah Idris.
Sitpah said the ship belonged to Malaysia since two of the plaintiffs, 1MDB Energy Holdings Limited and 1MDB Global Investment Limited, were found to be the beneficial owners.
She added that the registered owner of the Equanimity, of Cayman Islands, had not turned up to contest the suit and deny the claim by the government, 1MDB and the two subsidiaries.
Sitpah said in delivering the judgment, the court went through strict judicial process and was finally satisfied that the RM1 billion (US$250 million) used to buy the yacht belonged to Malaysia and 1MDB, a company fully under the control of the finance ministry.
On Oct 5, the court granted an application by the four plaintiffs to appoint a central broker and an international appraiser to handle the sale of the Equanimity, which has been linked to fugitive businessman Low Taek Jho, better known as Jho Low.
This followed a decision on Aug 24 by the same court granting an application by the four plaintiffs to sell the Equanimity.
“The broker is now conducting the marketing and publicity to get bidders,” Sitpah said, adding that the tenders for sale would be open by the end of the month.
Sitpah said she hoped the vessel, the 54th largest yacht in the world, could be sold to the highest bidder by the end of the year.
She said the appraiser’s value of the ship would remain confidential as the government wanted more bidders to come in.
“Bids are not open yet but there are people showing interest,” she added.
In the application filed on Aug 23, the plaintiffs named the owner of the ship as the defendant in the suit filed through the law firm of Jeremy Joseph & Partners.
In the notice of application, the four plaintiffs asked for the sale of the ship, bunkers, fuel, lubricants and other consumables on board to be conducted via public tender or private treaty by the Admiralty Court’s sheriff.
The superyacht was brought to Port Klang on Aug 7 after Indonesian authorities handed it over to Malaysia.
It was seized off Bali in February at the request of the US authorities as part of the corruption investigation launched by the US Department of Justice into 1MDB.