SC Raided Serba Dinamik, Nine Days Later, RM100 Million Walked Through the Door

This article draws on ARIM’s statement of claim, filed at the High Court on April 30, 2026, and the statements of defence subsequently filed by the named defendants, together with independently verified regulatory and exchange records cited separately below. Claims drawn from the pleadings represent the parties’ own positions and have not been tested at trial.

The regulator raided the company. Nine days later, a state-linked fund manager handed it RM100 million. Nobody warned the market in between.

That’s the timeline now sitting in a High Court lawsuit filed by AmanahRaya Investment Management Sdn Bhd (ARIM) against Serba Dinamik Holdings Bhd and 12 other parties, over an investment that’s now worth nothing. Serba Dinamik is in liquidation. The Securities Commission Malaysia (SC) isn’t a defendant. But its silence is written into the timeline anyway — and it has never had to answer for it.

Nine days

May 2021: KPMG, Serba Dinamik’s auditor, flags serious problems — sales transactions, trade receivables, payables, on-site balances that don’t add up. Under Malaysian law, that’s not optional to report. Auditors file a Section 320 notice to the SC only when they believe a listed company’s financials may be compromised, or securities law broken. KPMG filed it.

May 18: the SC raids Serba Dinamik’s offices. Not a letter. Not a request for documents. A raid — using powers reserved for cases where evidence might otherwise vanish.

Then: silence. No trading halt. No public statement. No warning.

May 24: ARIM pays RM95.77 million for Islamic Commercial Papers tied to Serba Dinamik’s sukuk programme. It becomes the sole holder of RM100 million in ICPs.

May 25: according to ARIM’s claim, Serba Dinamik finally discloses the audit issues to Bursa Malaysia. One day too late. ARIM’s money was already gone.

Nine days between the raid and the money moving. Nine days of nothing from the one institution that already knew.

Who’s on the hook — and who isn’t

ARIM is suing Serba Dinamik, former auditor KPMG PLT, principal adviser RHB Investment Bank Bhd, rating agency MARC, sukuk trustee Malaysian Trustees Bhd, and eight former and current directors — including CEO Datuk Mohd Abdul Karim Abdullah, who couldn’t be located and was served by court order instead. The claim: they hid the audit concerns and the raid from investors, they should have pulled the issuance, and MARC rated it favourably using unaudited numbers. ARIM wants the full RM100 million back, plus damages.

The SC isn’t on that list. It can’t be, legally — ARIM’s suit is about who concealed what, not about who stayed quiet while holding the full picture. That’s the gap. The lawsuit can punish concealment. It has no tool for silence.

Every defendant denies wrongdoing. Serba Dinamik says ARIM couldn’t have relied on the Information Memorandum alone. KPMG says it had no role in the ICP issuance and that Serba Dinamik hid both the issuance and the raid from KPMG too. RHBIB and MTB say ARIM came to them, not the other way round. MARC says a rating is an opinion, not a promise. Five former independent directors say they did their jobs properly.

The SC has explained itself once. Not about this.

In April 2022, responding to separate accusations from Serba Dinamik, the SC said its actions — including the May 18 raid — were “proper and executed in good faith in the discharge of its regulatory powers.” Fine. That defends the raid. It says nothing about the nine days after it.

The SC does know how to act once wrongdoing is proven. In 2022, it compounded Serba Dinamik and four executives RM16 million for false revenue statements. Bursa reprimanded the company and 10 directors in 2023. Real consequences — a year and two years too late to save ARIM’s money.

The question nobody’s suing over

A raid means the regulator had grounds to believe evidence might disappear. Nine days later, the same company raised nine figures from another state-linked institution, and the public heard nothing until it was over. ARIM’s lawsuit will decide who pays. It was never built to ask whether the SC should have said something while it still mattered. That question is still just sitting there. Unanswered.