Businessman Tiu files damage suit vs AMLC

Businessman Antonio Tiu. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO / NIÑO JESUS ORBETA

The family of businessman Antonio L. Tiu has filed a P100 Million damage suit against officials of the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) for the “deliberately false and erroneous” report they allegedly approved and submitted to the Court of Appeals to seek the issuance of freeze order against their banks accounts.

Named defendants in the complaint filed with the Quezon City regional trial court were AMLC members Amando Tetangco Jr., Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas governor; Teresita Herbosa, Securities and Exchange Commission chair; Insurance Commissioner Emmanuel Dooc, and AMLC executive director Julia Abad.

In a 17-page complaint, Tiu, his brother James and sister-in-law Ann Loraine accused AMLC members led by Abad of violating the Civil Code by preparing or causing the preparation of the report, and using it to file an ex parte petition with the Court of Appeals.

Last May 11, the court issued an order freezing more than 200 accounts belong to Binay, his family, aides and friends such as Tiu.

The Tius said the report contained defamatory statements against them. They also accused Abad for publicizing the report “through its unlawful distribution to third parties, specifically the concocted and fabricated claims contained therein, which maliciously impute against plaintiffs the crime of, among others, money laundering as well as graft and corruption, thereby attacking and attempting to ruin their reputation, defendants caused damaged to plaintiffs through fault and negligence.”

The Tius also said the AMLC committed abuse of authority by filing and publicizing “purely for the purpose of harassing, prejudicing, vexing and discrediting plaintiffs is a clear abuse of rights.”

The complainants claimed the AMLC officials “perverted” the process of applying for freeze order under the Anti-Money Laundering Act, “to accomplish an ulterior or wrongful purpose for which it was not designed.”

“It is disappointing that politicians and the AMLC are willing to risk the lives of more than 5,000 hardworking employees, farmers and suppliers who are directly and indirectly reliant on my businesses for their livelihood. This cycle of politics being involved in business, and business being involved in politics depending on who is in power must be stopped if we want our country to move forward and attain its true potential,” Tiu said in a statement.

He said he and his family were victims of an “on-going operation” that was maliciously dragging him, his family and his companies into an “unscrupulous strategy” destroy Vice President Jejomar Binay’s name and reputation to diminish his next year’s presidential race.

Tiu said the “weaving [of] lies and concocting [of[ stories imputing criminal wrongdoings” against his and his family “disregard the rights of Filipino-Chinese businessmen such as myself, whom they (Binay’s opponents) consider as non-members of the Philippine elite or the existing oligarchs.”

Due to the “grossly baseless, manifestly unfounded, and wantonly malicious” acts of the respondents in preparing and approving the report and filing of the petition, the Tius claimed that they “undeservedly suffered physical suffering, mental anguish, fright, serious anxiety, besmirched reputation, wounded feelings, moral shock, and social humiliation.”

The complainants sought from the AMLC members P50 million in moral damages, P50 million in exemplary damages, and P1 million in attorney’s fees.

Tiu also accused AMLC officials for statements in the report and the petition that “maliciously” implicated him, directly and through companies related to him such as Greenergy Holdings Inc., Sunchamp Real Estate Development Corp. and Earthright Holdings Inc. in certain crimes and defects, all of which he described as “mere fabrications and outright lies.”

According to Tiu, the AMLC officials lied to the court and that AMLC authorized representatives perjured themselves by stating under oath in the petition that the multiple transactions involving receipt of inward remittances, inter-branch fund transfers among Greenergy, Earthright, Sunchamp and SPCMB (Subido Pagente Certeza Mendoza and Binay) Law Offices was without any underlying legal or trade obligation, purpose or economic justification and/or that it was allegedly not commensurate to the business or financial capacity of the individuals involved.

Tiu said that a simple perusal of the disclosures of Greenergy lodged with the Philippine Stock Exchange, which were already public and readily accessible to AMLC, would already belie the claim of report as the alleged “unjustified transactions” actually involved the legitimate transactions where SPCMB Law acted as legal counsel.

Among the transactions were the were the sale of Greenergy’s interest in a biomass power plant for at least P400 million; the sale by Earthright of marketable securities to Greenergy for approximately P255 million; the acquisition by Greenergy of additional marketable securities in the amount of around P113 million; receipt by Greenergy of the unpaid subscription that was due from Tiu, Earthright and Sunchamp for the total amount of more than P316 Million; and investment of Greenergy of P310 million in Sunchamp. ABC