In a landmark case, the Sessions Court has ruled in favour of a businessman in a suit that he filed against Luno Malaysia Sdn Bhd for negligence in safeguarding the cryptocurrencies that were stored within his Luno account. As such, plaintiff Yew See Tak is to be compensated with a sum of almost RM700,000.

In the negligence suit filed in 2021, Yew said that his Luno account was hacked into, after which he lost almost RM600,000 worth of cryptocurrencies. Specifically, a total of RM566,570.70 in Yew’s Luno account was used to buy 2.730096 Bitcoins (BTCs) in three transactions, which were then transferred to an unknown account along with an existing 0.15106083 BTCs that Yew had previously bought.

Yew contended that Luno Malaysia had a duty to take care of the funds given the scope of its expertise, and said that he had lodged a complaint with Luno’s customer service department upon discovering the losses. He also sent a letter of demand, but was unable to resolve the situation satisfactorily.

Luno, meanwhile, denied the claims, and highlighted that no unusual sign-ins were detected as all the transactions were done through the Luno website and app from Yew’s mobile phone. Each transaction was also authorised through a text message sent to his mobile number.

Ultimately, Judge Sazlina Safie ruled in favour of Yew, saying that he has successfully proven his claim against Luno Malaysia on a balance of probabilities (referring to the fact that an event is more likely than not to have occurred). “The court ordered, among others, for the defendant (Luno Malaysia) to compensate the plaintiff (Yew) the sum of RM597,920.05 together with an additional RM100,000 as exemplary damages,” said one of Yew’s lawyers, Ong Yu Jian.

Ong also noted that this ruling is an encouraging development in the crypto landscape in Malaysia. “Hopefully, this leads to cryptocurrency platforms being much safer to use in the eyes of the public,” he said.

Meanwhile, Luno Malaysia is set to submit an appeal with the High Court against the Sessions Court’s decision, and has been granted an interim stay of 14 days. This means that Luno will only need to pay the awarded sum to Yew after the end of the 14 days.

Luno Malaysia is one of five digital asset exchanges licensed by the Securities Commission Malaysia (SC) to operate in Malaysia, and it is the first licensed crypto platform in Malaysia. Aside from Luno, the other four exchanges include MX Global, SINEGY, Tokenize Technology, and most recently, HATA Digital.

(Sources: Malay Mail, Free Malaysia Today)

• TAGS:
• Bitcoin
• Court Rulings
• Courtroom Cases
• Cryptocurrency
• Judge Sazlina Safie
• Luno
• Luno Malaysia
• Ong Yu Jian
• Sessions Court
• Yew See Tak