Malaysia's Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad has said the southeast Asian nation is not going to accept $2 billion from Goldman Sachs as compensation for the 1MDB scandal, the Financial Times reports.
"Goldman Sachs has offered something like less than $2 billion”, the Prime Minister told the newspaper. "We are not satisfied with that amount so we are still talking to them . . . If they respond reasonably we might not insist on getting that $7.5 billion".
It is not the first time Malaysian officials have declined a compensation offer from the US Goldman Sachs company. In June, the financial group had proposed to give $241.73 million as repayment on the money lost by Malaysia under then-Prime Minister Najib Razak.
The scandal erupted after Goldman helped Malaysia's state-run fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) collect $6.5 billion in investment in 2012-13, and charged the company $600 million – a price much higher than typical Goldman fees. Former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak has been accused of money laundering and embezzling about $4.5 billion from the fund.