DECEMBER 5 — FashionValet Sdn Bhd (FashionValet) founders Datin Vivy Yusof and Datuk Fadzarudin Shah Anuar were charged in the Sessions Court at Kuala Lumpur on Thursday (December 5) with criminal breach of trust involving RM8 million in investment funds belonging to Khazanah Nasional Berhad (Khazanah) and Permodalan Nasional Berhad (PNB) six years ago.

The charge is framed under Section 409 of the Penal Code (Act 574), read together with Section 34 of the same Code.

All offences under the Penal Code shall be inquired into and tried according to the provisions of the Criminal Procedure Code (Act 593), which is the general law on criminal procedure. In other words, the offence under Section 409 of the Penal Code should be inquired into or investigated by the police.

Vivy and her husband, however, were investigated by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC).

Why the MACC and not the police?

The answer is in the MACC Act 2009 (Act 694).

The officers of the MACC have the duty under Section 7 of the Act to investigate (i) any suspected offence; (ii) any suspected attempt to commit any offence; and (iii) any suspected conspiracy to commit any offence under the Act.

Under Section 29(3) of the Act, where an officer of the MACC has reason to suspect the commission of an offence under the Act, he shall cause an investigation to be carried out and for such purpose may exercise all the powers of investigation provided for under the Act and the Criminal Procedure Code.

Offence under the Act includes a prescribed offence which in turn includes any offence under any written law as specified in the Schedule. An offence under Section 409 of the Penal Code is a prescribed offence.

So, the MACC is the authority to investigate the FashionValet founders, apart from the police. The authority to charge or prosecute both of them is the Public Prosecutor aka Attorney-General.

* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail.