The movie company that made The Wolf of Wall Street, and was cofounded by the Malaysian prime minister’s stepson, has settled a civil lawsuit brought by the US government to seize assets allegedly bought with money stolen from a Malaysian state fund.
Red Granite Pictures on Friday announced the settlement in a filing at the federal Los Angeles court, without revealing any sum.
US prosecutors, pursuing a kleptocracy asset recovery initiative, had claimed the 2013 film, directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Leonardo DiCaprio, was financed by Red Granite using funds stolen from 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB).
“The parties are pleased to inform the court that Red Granite and the government have reached a settlement in principle,” the filing said.
Red Granite has previously said that neither it nor its cofounder, Riza Aziz, had done anything wrong.
“We are glad to finally put this matter behind us and look forward to refocusing all of our attention back on our film business,” Red Granite said in a statement.
The US Department of Justice has lodged dozens of lawsuits in the past two years related to the alleged misappropriation of US$4.5 billion from the investment fund, 1MDB.
The US is seeking to seize about US$1.7 billion in assets, making it the largest action brought by the department under its kleptocracy asset recovery initiative.
The scandal has dogged Malayisan Prime Minister Najib Razak, who had chaired 1MDB’s advisory board until it was dismantled last year, but he has consistently denied any wrongdoing related to the fund.
While Najib has not been the subject of any of the lawsuits, a number of his close associates, including Aziz, have been named by US investigators.
Both US and Malaysian officials have confirmed that Najib is the “Malaysian Official Number 1” referred to in FBI reports.
Red Granite Pictures provided no details of the settlement, which the filing said remains subject to final documentation and necessary approvals within the government.
The settlement also covers claims against Red Granite’s rights and interests in two other pictures, Daddy’s Home and Dumb and Dumber To.
The US lawsuits have also sought to seize a Picasso painting given to DiCaprio and millions of US dollars worth of jewelry given to Australian model and actress Miranda Kerr, all allegedly from 1MDB funds.
Najib met US President Donald Trump at the White House earlier this week, but both leaders steered clear of addressing the US investigation into the 1MDB scandal.
TECH RACE: The Chinese firm showed off its new Mate XT hours after the latest iPhone launch, but its price tag and limited supply could be drawbacks China’s Huawei Technologies Co (華為) yesterday unveiled the world’s first tri-foldable phone, as it seeks to expand its lead in the world’s biggest smartphone market and steal the spotlight from Apple Inc hours after it debuted a new iPhone. The Chinese tech giant showed off its new Mate XT, which users can fold three ways like an accordion screen door, during a launch ceremony in Shenzhen. The Mate XT comes in red and black and has a 10.2-inch display screen. At 3.6mm thick, it is the world’s slimmest foldable smartphone, Huawei said. The company’s Web site showed that it has garnered more than
CROSS-STRAIT TENSIONS: The US company could switch orders from TSMC to alternative suppliers, but that would lower chip quality, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), whose products have become the hottest commodity in the technology world, on Wednesday said that the scramble for a limited amount of supply has frustrated some customers and raised tensions. “The demand on it is so great, and everyone wants to be first and everyone wants to be most,” he told the audience at a Goldman Sachs Group Inc technology conference in San Francisco. “We probably have more emotional customers today. Deservedly so. It’s tense. We’re trying to do the best we can.” Huang’s company is experiencing strong demand for its latest generation of chips, called
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
Vanguard International Semiconductor Corp (世界先進) and Episil Technologies Inc (漢磊) yesterday announced plans to jointly build an 8-inch fab to produce silicon carbide (SiC) chips through an equity acquisition deal. SiC chips offer higher efficiency and lower energy loss than pure silicon chips, and they are able to operate at higher temperatures. They have become crucial to the development of electric vehicles, artificial intelligence data centers, green energy storage and industrial devices. Vanguard, a contract chipmaker focused on making power management chips and driver ICs for displays, is to acquire a 13 percent stake in Episil for NT$2.48 billion (US$77.1 million).
RSS