Komandoo constituency lawmaker Ahmed Nashid has been fined with USD 12,000 from the High Court of Singapore for contempt of court.
According to Singapore based Straits Times news, Nashid, who owns the ADK Travels had first failed to attend the Singapore court on July 2015 over a USD 1.5 million debt. The debt was owed on a loan given to ADK Travels by Singaporean investment company Fomento Associated Singapore Holdings.
The ADK group honcho and Komandoo lawmaker had acted as the personal guarantor for the loan as well.
Straits Times further wrote that post default the Singaporean investment corporation had sued Nashid along with ADK Travels and its parent ADK Company, obtaining a High Court judgment back in 2014. Fomento had then applied to examine Nashid in court and assess any assets that can be called in to settle debts.
However Nashid was absent to the July 8, 2015 hearing at Singapore's High Court which was described by Subramaniam Pillai of Colin Ng & Partners, as an act that showed Nashid had "every intention not to comply with the court's order."
Pillai had also added that the court proceedings had to be adjourned on several occasions because of the challenges in serving an order to attend the court on Nashid.
Earlier this year in July a hearing for an application of contempt was set to which Nashid was ordered to attend. However he had later apologized to the court explaining he was unable to attend due to parliamentary sessions and political meetings in Male'. The hearing was adjourned til last Monday.
Meanwhile Nashid's defense advocate Jeremy Gan of Rajah & Tan had urged the court to dismiss the move for contempt and deliver penalization in the form of a small fine or stern warning instead. The Judicial Commissioner of the court, Audrey Lim had found the ADK group head guilty and held the breach of court order was deliberate.
However he was directed with simply a fine after considering all the factors of the case. Nashid had since then assured that he would settle the fine by Sunday (November 12) while he was ordered to pay costs, to be assessed.
The case had not concluded entirely as Singapore High Court "examination of judgement debtro" is set to continue in December to recover the six-year-old loan issued by Formento which had since grown with interest to a little over USD 2 million.
