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• Maybank adheres to Cabinet order
• Maybank to pick law firms on merit

©Bernama (Used by permission)

KUALA LUMPUR, May 9 (Bernama) -- Malayan Banking Bhd, Wednesday said it will continue to select solicitor firms based primarily on performance, efficiency and merit, revising earlier guidelines requiring legal firms to have Bumiputera equity if they wanted to do business with the bank.

The bank had said in a May 4 statement that legal firms wanting to do business with it have to have at least three partners, one of whom must be a Bumiputera partner with a 50 percent stake.

In a statement here Wednesday, the bank said the guidelines have been revised upon review of the issues and concerns raised by various parties.

"Moving forward and with immediate effect, all solicitor firms, whether with Bumiputera or non-Bumiputera equity ownership, are eligible for consideration."

"All other revised criteria for emplacement of solicitor firms pursuant to our annual review remain unchanged," Maybank, the largest bank in the country, said.

Meanwhile, in a separate statement, the Ambank Group said it has been practising a policy of appointing legal firms that do not have Bumiputera partners for the past 20 years.

The group said it does not impose restrictions of quota of shares on the equity participation of Bumiputera partners.

It issued the statement Wednesday amid an outcry over the ruling imposed by Maybank by legal firms, chambers of commerce and some political parties, which said jobs should be given to legal firms based on merit and not on such racial quotas.

Ambank said the group has always encouraged legal firms to have Bumiputera partners to encourage Bumiputera participation in the financial services industry in respect of specialised services.

Responding to the issue earlier, Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Mohd Najib Tun Razak said in Boston on Tuesday that people must not misinterpret the government's policy of encouraging government-linked companies to give business to both Bumiputera and non-Bumiputera companies.

"There should not be any hard and fast rule but there should be efforts to help both," he said.

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