Yew See Tak had filed a negligence suit against Luno Malaysia Sdn Bhd for failing to safeguard his cryptocurrency kept in his Luno account in 2021.

In October last year, the sessions court ruled that Yew had proven his claim against Luno on a balance of probabilities.

However, High Court judge Hazizah Kassim said there was no security lapse on Luno’s part which caused Yew to lose the cryptocurrency kept in his Luno account, according to The Edge.

Hazizah also said the sessions court judge had imposed a high standard of care and duty on Luno in her ruling with insufficient evidence tendered.

She awarded Luno costs of RM10,000.

During the trial, the sessions court was told that on March 6, 2021, money kept in Yew’s account was transferred out in three tranches by an unidentified hacker.

Yew said he filed a complaint with Luno’s customer service department after discovering the losses and sent a letter of demand, but did not receive a positive response.

He claimed that the defendant had a duty to take care of the funds based on its business expertise.

The court ordered Luno to compensate Yew RM598,000, the sum withdrawn from his account.

Yew was also awarded an additional RM100,000 in exemplary damages.

Luno was represented by lawyers Faisal Moideen, Maximilian Tai and Clarence Tang. Ong Yu Jian, Joshua Ho, and Hanani Azamuddin appeared for Yew.

Ong said Yew will “highly likely” appeal against the High Court decision.