Shearman & Sterling has been named in a series of recent civil complaints filed by the U.S. Justice Department for having provided a trust account through which hundreds of millions of dollars belonging to Malaysia’s 1MDB fund were illicitly siphoned.
According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, the complaints allege that the money was used to fund, among other things, a Beverly Hills hotel, private jet and yacht rentals, and the Hollywood motion picture “The Wolf of Wall Street.”
Court filings show 11 transfers totalling $368 million sent to the Shearman account between October 2009 and October 2010 from a Swiss bank account that contained $1 billion, said WSJ. However, the report added that neither Shearman nor any of its lawyers are accused of wrongdoing.
1MDB, or 1Malaysia Development Berhad, is a Malaysian sovereign wealth fund established to drive long-term economic development for the country. In 2015, allegations were made in several newspapers, including WSJ, that the organisation had been used to siphon state funds into the accounts of Prime Minister Najib Razak, and people associated with him.
