KUALA LUMPUR (Aug 11): The High Court on Thursday (Aug 11) fixed Oct 26 as the hearing date of Minister of Finance Inc-owned Perbadanan Nasional Bhd's (Pernas) application to seek summary judgment against Serba Dinamik Holdings Bhd group managing director Datuk Dr Mohd Abdul Karim Abdullah and two former senior executives of Serba Dinamik's subsidiaries.

The court also fixed the same date to hear Pernas' application to strike out Abdul Karim's counterclaim against the suit.

Both applications will be presided over by Justice Ong Chee Kwan.

The dates were decided following case management held on Thursday, before High Court deputy registrar Rini Triany Muhamad Ali.

The date was confirmed by Wafiy Azman, who appeared for Pernas, with theedgemarkets.com.

“Yes, the court fixed Oct 26 for both the plaintiff's application for summary judgment and its application to strike out Abdul Karim's counterclaim.

It was reported that Pernas filed the suit last May, where it sought to claim the return of RM46.49 million over a share investment that went bad.

Besides Abdul Karim, the other two defendants are Rosland Othman and Rosli Hamat. Rosland was previously a senior vice-president (special project) under Serba Dinamik Group Bhd (SDGB), while Rosli was a senior vice-president (investment) of Serba Dinamik International Ltd (SDIL). Both SDGB and SDIL are Serba Dinamik's subsidiaries.

In the statement of claim filed, Pernas said it entered into an investment agreement and a put option agreement with Rosland and Rosli on Jan 24, 2018, under which Pernas agreed to purchase 13.5 million Serba Dinamik shares. The purchase price was not stated.

Under the deal, the parties agreed that should Serba Dinamik shares fall below RM3 per share, Rosland and Rosli would pay Pernas the difference between RM3 and the actual share price it fell to, within seven days after a notice from Pernas.

Pernas also inked a put option agreement with the duo, which gave Pernas the right to sell the shares it bought to the duo at an agreed option price that would take into consideration Pernas' investment cost, at 12% interest per year.

Rosland and Rosli, according to the statement of claim, then inked a supplementary option agreement on June 27, 2019, which stipulated that if the duo failed to buy the Serba Dinamik shares owned by Pernas should Pernas exercise its put option, then Abdul Karim would be required to complete the acquisition.

Pernas said Abdul Karim was prepared to absorb the losses that could be suffered by Pernas should Serba Dinamik's share price fall below RM3.

When Serba Dinamik shares fell last year, Pernas started to claim from the duo, but they failed to pay up, and the company exercised its put option to sell its Serba Dinamik shares to the duo at RM46.44 million. But neither Rosland nor Rosli was able to fulfil the agreement.

This led Pernas to issue a notice to Abdul Karim to buy over the shares, but Abdul Karim similarly failed to honour the guarantee, resulting in the suit.

At the same time, the three of them filed their defence, where they claimed that Pernas was negligent in not taking earlier action to mitigate its losses.

Abdul Karim also filed a counterclaim against Pernas, against which the company filed an application on Aug 1 to strike out.

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MOF Inc-owned Pernas seeks summary judgment in RM46 mil lawsuit against Serba Dinamik MD, two former execs