TOP Glove Corp Bhd is considering taking legal action against a British daily over a report alleging forced labour conditions at its plants, which caused its share prices to plunge, wiping off RM900 million in a single day of trading at Bursa Malaysia.

Group chairman Lim Wee Chai told The Malaysian Insight the report in The Guardian was unfair and misleading.

“We are now forced to consider legal action after this damaging report,” he said.

Its shares plummeted after the article on Sunday accused the world’s largest glove manufacturer of using forced labour, taking away the migrant workers’ passports and withholding their salaries.

The group on Monday lost RM900 million in a day’s trading at the Kuala Lumpur stock exchange.

The report was part of a wider investigation into Britain’s National Health Service supply chain.

The paper said the NHS was supplied medical rubber gloves by Malaysian manufacturers Top Glove and WRP Asia Pacific Sdn Bhd, which exploited thousands of migrant workers from Nepal and Bangladesh, who had complained of slaving 12 hours a day, seven days a week and being allowed only one rest day a month.

Human Resources Minister M. Kulasegaran on Monday cleared Top Glove of any wrongdoing, declaring the claims in the articles to be mostly false.

The company has released a statement denying the charges but conceding long working hours are a problem at its plants. It said it was working on addressing the problem by increasing manpower and changing shift patterns.

Lim said the group would adhere to the labour laws in relation to extra working hours and that starting this month, it was capping overtime at 104 hours a month as stipulated under the Employment Act 1955. 

The overtime limit was not expected to affect production, he said.

The company is also looking at increasing automation to reduce dependence on foreign workers.

“We have over the last five years worked at increasing automation (in the production line)  at the plant. We are now looking to automate more of the production process to reduce the number of workers.” – December 12, 2018.