STO loses suit against Meridium over MVR 19 mn credit issue

State Trading Organization (STO) has lost their lawsuit against Meridium Service Private Limited – who they claim took MVR 19.3 million worth of fuel from them on credit.

STO filed the lawsuit with Civil Court to get the value of the fuel taken by Meridium in accordance with the agreement made on March 31, 2016, along with fines accumulated up until December 1, 2010.

Meridium is owned by ruling Progressive Party of Maldives (PPM) lawmaker Riyaaz Rasheed.

Issuing the verdict during Thursday’s hearing, the Judge said that Meridium had questioned the authenticity of documents presented to court by STO showing that the company supplied Meridium with fuel. And that STO had said they had lost the originals of the agreement, when they were asked to prove its authenticity.

Judge said that STO had said the documents went missing after a robbery, and that the incident had been reported to police.

He noted that the robbery was reported to police on in October, 2011, but the lawsuit against Meridium had been filed before that.

He also said that STO had retracted the lawsuit, and the filed it again after reporting the robbery.

The judge said that police reported that STO had not lost the original documents in a robbery.

And that there was no proof that Meridium was involved in the documents winding up missing.

The judge said that the testimony of STO’s witness who claimed to have taken photocopies of the original documents could not be considered as the individual was still an employee of STO. And that the date the witness claimed to have taken photocopies of the documents was after it was reported missing.

He said that witnesses brought forward to testify they had supplied Meridium vessels with fuel had been unable to satisfactorily say that the vessels were indeed Meridium’s.

The judge ruled that Meridium was not found guilty of taking MVR 19.3 million in fuel on credit from STO, based on documents and witness testimony presented to court.