Midas says will appeal court ruling in civil complaint if former CEO agrees to help

TROUBLED railway parts maker Midas Holdings is trying to appeal a judgement by the Jilin High People's Court in a civil complaint brought by a lender it claims never existed in the group's accounts.

If Midas can get its former chief executive to step up to the task, that is.

Jilin Provincial Micro Refinancing Corp, a lender that does not exist in the group's accounts, had sued Midas subsidiary Jilin Midas last year, claiming it had lent a total of 379 million yuan (S$75.2 million) to the subsidiary. This lender alleged that Midas had approved the provision of a 400 million yuan guarantee for the subsidiary's loans, to its benefit.

Although Midas director Xu Wei Dong argued that the board resolution which allegedly approved the guarantee was not valid as there was no proper meeting notification, no complete board attendance and no official company stamp was used, the Court ruled that the board resolution was valid, and carried the signature of former Midas chief executive Patrick Chew Hwa Kwang.

In fact, Mr Chew had informed Midas in August last year that the signature on the board resolution was not his. However, the Court still ruled that Mr Chew had signed the resolutions, since he did not back his denials with other evidence.

Midas said that before the judgements were given, it had written to Mr Chew many times to appoint a legal counsel in China to represent himself at the Court and to back his denials, but did not receive a response.

The Court gave its judgements on Nov 28, 2018, but they were only delivered to Mr Xu on Dec 31, 2018.

Midas has 30 calendar days to appeal the judgements after receipt, and has once again asked Mr Chew on Dec 31 if he will appoint a legal counsel to provide evidence to back his denials.

To have sufficient time to arrange for the appeal, Midas has given Mr Chew up to Jan 9, 2019, to respond.