KUALA LUMPUR — The 111 people who sued Qew Group Bhd and two of its directors over a lost investment were not duped. They were sophisticated players who knew the game, the company told the High Court today. That defence, filed by Messrs Ahnaf Zaimi & Co, cuts to the heart of the case.
The plaintiffs — aged 28 to 89 — each put up a considerable sum. The defendants argue these investors met the Securities Commission Malaysia’s criteria for sophisticated investors.
They signed warranties. They declared they could assess risk on their own. The money went into Qew Group’s Redeemable Preference Shares-i scheme, or RPS-i.
A structured product. The kind that typically demands a hefty minimum investment.
The kind not sold to just anyone walking in off the street. On April 3, the group filed a writ of summons. They named Qew Group, its shareholder Datuk Dr Muhamad Iqbal Mohamad, and director Mohd Fairoz Muhammed.
The claim: fraud. But the defence paints a different picture. No debtor-creditor relationship existed, the company says.
The RPS-i agreement was not a conventional loan. There was no absolute obligation to repay.
Returns, distributions, redemptions — all of it hinged on the terms of the agreement, Qew Group’s financial health, and whatever corporate decisions were made along the way. This is the stakes part. If the court accepts the defence’s logic, it rewrites what an investment means.
A sophisticated investor, by this reading, cannot later claim fraud when a speculative bet goes bad. They signed.
They knew. They took the risk. But the plaintiffs span six decades of life experience.
The youngest is 28. The oldest, 89. That gap matters.
A person at 89 may have signed a warranty. Did they understand the fine print the same way a 40-year-old finance professional would?
The Securities Commission’s framework sets a bar. The defendants say the plaintiffs cleared it. The court will have to decide what that bar actually meant for each of them.
The RPS-i structure itself is central. It is not a loan, the defendants insist.
That distinction is not mere semantics. Loans must be repaid. Structured products — especially those aimed at sophisticated investors — carry no such guarantee.
The money can vanish. The investor bears the loss. Qew Group, Iqbal, and Fairoz are betting the court will see 111 people who made a calculated bet, not 111 victims.
The plaintiffs are betting the court will see a company that took their money on terms they could not fully grasp. Neither side has presented its full case yet.
The writ was filed in early April. The defence came today. What happens next depends on how the court weighs a single question: Were these investors capable of protecting themselves, or was the product designed to look safe while being anything but?
The answer will decide who bears the loss.
