THE Securities Commission Malaysia (SC) has lodged a police report against oil and gas firm Serba Dinamik Holdings Bhd for criminal defamation, The Edge reported.

In the report, the regulator alleged that Serba Dinamik’s announcement to Bursa Malaysia on Thursday was in breach of section 499 of the penal code.

In its announcement, the beleaguered company had included an attachment – a 26-page filing entitled the court order dated February 7, 2022.

The SC lodged the report yesterday at the Jalan Travers police station.

The business portal quoted a source close to the SC that it felt the 26-page filing was considered “as an attempt to intimidate” and prevent SC from carrying out its duties.

On Thursday, Serba Dinamik questioned the SC’s motive of pressing charges against a select few (two directors and two executives), but not the company’s entire board, in what is alleged to be false revenue of RM6.01 billion for the financial year ended December 31, 2020 (FY20).

The company also challenged the SC to provide documentation exhibiting how RM6.01 billion in revenue was entered into the company’s ledgers, how such entries were false statements, and questioned how the FY20 revenue figure alone, in the announcement of the company’s fourth-quarter results, could have been tampered with, noting that it was the cumulative revenue figure for the four quarters of the year.

Serba Dinamik also claimed that the SC had threatened its staff, offering to drop charges against them if they become witnesses against the company and its management.

Last December, the SC pressed charges against Serba Dinamik’s directors and officers for submitting false information to Bursa Malaysia.

It also secured a warrant of arrest against the company’s chief executive officer and group managing director Mohd Abdul Karim Abdullah.

Earlier this month, criminal charges against four of Serba Dinamik’s top executives, including Abdul Karim, were substituted for a RM3 million compound meted out to each of them. – April 24, 2022.