CNBC’s Incomplete Report on Royal Bank of Scotland

Reporters have to face an uphill battle to gather information deemed sensitive but, producing incomplete reports not only mislead readers but also encourage rumor-mongering.

Dominic Chia

Finma (Switzerland’s Financial Market Regulatory Authority) has dropped another bombshell – saying that the Royal Bank of Scotland has been linked to the 1MDB probe.

However, the CNBC’s report dated 30th Apr 2016 by Emma Dunkley, Caroline Binham and Jeevan Vasagar is vague at best. The report has been found lacking some important details that link the investigation over the Bank of Scotland to the ruling elites of Malaysia. The report has not much reliable information which denotes that Najib is the ultimate perpetrator for all the mis-transactions involving millions and billions of US Dollars.

Besides that, the report had exposed that a few state owned firms in Malaysia allegedly transferred a portion of USD4 billion into Coutts International accounts, a former subsidiary of Royal Bank of Scotland based in Switzerland and now owned by Union Bancaire Privee. The accounts purportedly owned by a number of former public officials of Malaysia, former and current public officials of United Arab Emirates.

Unfortunately, the report failed to detail the owners and the amounts in those accounts.

Adding to this, the report mentioned another name of the account-owner in Coutts International as “Good Star” but also without the detail : “Good Star” belongs to whom!?

According to the report, the account under the name of “Good Star” had received USD860 million twice between Sept 2009 and Sept 2010, from 1MDB. So, the readers would wonder – who is “Good Star”?

Though the Attorney Genaral had revealed in January 2016 that at least USD4 billion has been misapropriated from Malaysian State Companies, he didn’t name the so-called Malaysian State Companies. Definitely, the readers want to know the names of these companies. Furthermore, Finma had indicated that another four financial institutions in Switzerland have been linked to the 1MDB probe but refused to name them.

Of course, reporters have to face an uphill battle to gather information deemed sensitive but, producing incomplete reports not only mislead readers but also encourage rumor-mongering.

Finma’s refusal to reveal the names of the financial institutions could be a matter of subjudice, but it also could draw a lot of false allegations against innocent parties. So, should the reporters have no choice but to report without complete information, it is incumbent on the readers to judge the report wisely and stay away from making false accusations without sufficient evidence.