BANKING giant Goldman Sachs will send a lawyer to observe former prime minister’s 1Malaysia Development Bhd trial, tentatively set to start next Monday, Bloomberg reports.

Local lawyer Chetan Jethwani, representing the US bank, will hold a watching brief in the August 26 hearing. 

A watching brief refers to lawyers who are not representing any party to a suit to act as an observer and obtain witness statements and documents. They are not, however, allowed to question witnesses or submit evidence.

On August 9, the Malaysian government filed 17 charges against current and former directors of three Goldman Sachs subsidiaries.

The three subsidiaries are Goldman Sachs International, Goldman Sachs (Asia) LLC, and Goldman Sachs (Singapore) Pte, said Attorney-General Tommy Thomas.

The new charges pertain to charges filed in December last year against the same three subsidiaries, as well as former Goldman Sachs employees Tim Leissner and Roger Ng, and former 1MDB executive Jasmine Loo Ai Swan and fugitive businessman Low Taek Jho.

The charges hold that the bonds were issued under false or misleading statements to“dishonestly misappropriate billions from the bond proceeds”.

For the 1MDB trial, Najib faces 25 charges of money-laundering and abuse of power, relating to RM2.28 billion in the state investor’s funds deposited into his AmBank accounts between February 2011 and December 2014. 

The proceedings next week will also focus  on global money flows from Singapore to Abu Dhabi.

Lawyers previously attempted to delay the 1MDB trial to allow the SRC International proceedings to conclude first. The Federal Court, however, last week ruled that the 1MDB trial must go on. – August 19, 2019.