Malaysia Receives KPMG’s $80 Million 1MDB Settlement Payment
Malaysia Receives KPMG’s $80 Million 1MDB Settlement Payment
(Bloomberg) -- Malaysia has received $80 million from KPMG in settlement over the firm’s audit of state fund 1Malaysia Development Bhd.’s accounts for the financial years 2010 through 2012, according to the finance ministry.
The money was deposited into Malaysia’s Assets Recovery Trust Account, which has received a total of 19.138 billion ringgit of seized and repatriated funds. The funds have been used to settle 1MDB’s outstanding debts, Finance Minister Zafrul Tengku Abdul Aziz said in a statement on Thursday.
KPMG Arrives at $80 Million Settlement With Malaysia Over 1MDB
“The current balance of the Trust Account is sufficient to pay off only the principal amount of the bonds for 2022,” he said. “Once all the Trust Account funds are utilized, the government will continue to bear the obligation to pay the balance of 1MDB’s debts, whose issuance was backed by government guarantee and letter of support.”
Malaysia has repaid 13.3 billion of 1MDB’s debt so far, according to the ministry. As at Dec. 31, 2021, outstanding debt comprising principal and coupons or profit for bonds and sukuk amounted to 38.81 billion ringgit.
The financial scandal at 1MDB set off investigations in Asia, the U.S. and Europe, and led to the historic change in government in 2018. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. in 2020 admitted its role in the biggest foreign bribery case in U.S. enforcement history, reaching multiple international settlements in the billions of dollars to end probes into its fundraising for 1MDB.
©2022 Bloomberg L.P.