High Court judge Rosilah Yop ordered the trial to start from March 12. The decision was made in chambers, state news agency Bernama reported.
The judge also fixed next Monday to hear the government’s application to cancel Tajudin’s RM500 million counterclaim against MAS and the federal government.
The 65-year-old had served as the airline’s executive chairman from 1994 to 2001 and was a poster boy of former finance minister Tun Daim Zainuddin’s now-discredited policy of nurturing a class of Malay corporate captains on government largesse during the Mahathir administration.
The main suit filed in 2006 by MAS and its two subsidiaries, MAS Golden Holidays Sdn Bhd dan MAS Hotels & Boutiques Sdn Bhd, charged that Tajudin and his four companies — Naluri Corporation Bhd, Promet (Langkawi) Resorts Sdn Bhd, Kauthar Venture Capital Sdn Bhd and Pakatan Permai Sdn Bhd — had intentionally breached his obligations and trust to win certain contracts that benefitted him, using MAS.
Tajudin has denied the charge, saying the MAS suit contained bare allegations, with no facts or circumstances cited to back them and was an abuse of the court system.
The Kedah-born businessman claimed that MAS had acted with malice and in bad faith in taking legal action against him to embarrass and tarnish his reputation.
He added the airline’s report with the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) against him was defamatory.
Tajudin was represented by lawyer Lim Kian Leong; SM Shanmugam stood for MAS and Lailawati Ali acted for Putrajaya.
Earlier this month, Tajudin settled out-of-court his debt owed to Pengurusan Danaharta Bhd (Danaharta) and several other government-linked companies (GLCs) for an undisclosed sum of money, despite a High Court decision in December 2009 ordering the ex-MAS chief to pay the state asset management manager RM589.14 million plus two per cent interest per year, backdated to January 1, 2006.
