‘Win-win deal’: Vigneswaran reveals why

The MIED suit has been settled, and the critics rained accusations on him. But the former MIC Youth chief says he did what was best for the education arm.

KUALA LUMPUR: Former MIC Youth chief SA Vigneswaran who initiated the RM100 million suit against MIED chairman S Samy Vellu and seven other trustees has defended his decision to opt for a “win-win formula”.

Vigneswaran said he decided to look into the matter seriously immediately after the Federal Court on April 5 granted leave to Samy Vellu and the trustees to appeal against the June 14 decision of the Kuala Lumpur High Court to grant leave to him (Vigneswaran) to name the MIC education arm as the plaintiff.

“If I lose at the Federal Court, the entire case at the High Court will be thrown out and nothing will come out from the effort that went in for more than a year,” he told FMT.

He said when his legal team was offered the “win-win formula” to settle the dispute out of court, Vigneswaran said he decided to accept it even if it meant giving up on some of his earlier demands.
“This settlement is not like any other settlement, where one goes to court and withdraws the suit. It only can be withdrawn with leave of court and that is what happened. We gave the reason for the withdrawal at the same court which granted us leave to intiate this action (the suit),” he added.

He explained that it meant that the court found the terms reasonable and in the interest of MIED.
Among the settlements recorded at the High Court yesterday were:

• MIED board agrees to let Vigneswaran sit on the board as an observer for a year;
• MIED shall implement one-year order to stop blacklisting MIED students to enable them to repay their loan and the interest to be fixed at 4%;
• repayment of loans to start from the date of their employment or six months after their graduation;
• MIED board to stop a scheduled procedure for study loan approvals;
• to appoint Deloitte Corporate Solutions Sdn Bhd as the management consultants/management accountants for MIED ; and
• full disclosure of major transactions and matters relating to MIED at board meetings.

‘Critics can say what they want’

On the issue of backdoor deals including the speculation that he was “bought over”, Vigneswaran said if he had wanted to do that he would have done it when Samy Vellu brought him back into the party last October.
“They can make whatever allegations against me over this, my conscience is clear. The critics should bear in mind that Vigneswaran is not the only member of MIED but Vigneswaran was the only member who did something about it,” he said.

Since the day he initiated the suit, Vigeswaran said he had consistently stated that it was not to seek revenge but to ensure that MIED was managed properly.

“The crux of the matter is simple. There were some wrongdoings and weaknesses in MIED and I succeded in exposing them and now I have been given the chance to be observer in the board for a year to ensure such things do not recur,” he said.

He said there were occasions where employees of MIED “hijacked” money and this should not happen again.
Vigneswaran also said with the terms of settlement, there would be more transparency. “The board’s decisions in future will be collective and no more unilateral decisions,” he added.

MIED filed the summons after the High Court on June 14 last year allowed Vigneswaran’s application to name MIED as the plaintiff in its proposed suit against the chairman and trustees.

The ex-MIC Youth chief had sought the court’s permission to initiate the suit under Section 181A of the Companies Act 1965.

This section requires a company seeking to be a plaintiff in a suit to first get the court’s permission.
In the suit filed on July 5, last year, he named Samy Vellu, G Palanivel, M Mahalingam, Dr T Marimuthu, SK Ampikaipakam, Karnail Singh Nijhar, K Kumaran and G Vadiveloo and audit firm Kumpulan Naga.