For almost nine years, the owner of the intellectual property ‘Chiron's Method', a financial analysis tool that applies astrology, has been waiting for his day in court. And the wait continues.

The case came up for case management last Wednesday when an amended statement of defence was filed with the Kuala Lumpur High Court. However, it did not set a date for further case management or hearing.

A professional financial analyst, Ramesh Chelliah, 42, had filed a RM307 million suit on March 14, 2001 against a renowned accounting and consulting firm for ‘breach of contract, negligence and the tort of conversion'.

He named Pricewaterhouse Coopers (Public Accountants) and Pricewaterhouse Coopers Consulting Sdn Bhd and its managing director Chin Kwai Fatt as defendants.

Ramesh, his company Key West Global Ltd (Bahamas), and Premier Feature Sdn Bhd - the registered owner of the Monthsahead.com portal - claimed that the defendants had wanted to expand their business utilising the unique forecasting system.

However, the defendants had allegedly reneged on the agreement.

To promote his marketing network worldwide, Ramesh said he wanted to set up strategic alliances between Monthsahead.com, and other prominent websites to offer financial astrological products to institutional and individual investors.

He said that, by oral and written agreement, the defendants were to have come up with a business plan for Monthsahead.com, to assess its potential value as well as to negotiate and structure deals for the website.

Pricewaterhouse was to have delivered a copy of a business plan but allegedly failed to comply with this and other terms of the agreement dated July 14, 2000, including certain documents that were to be prepared.

As a result , Ramesh said he was unable to obtain investors like msn.com, I-Capital and Greenhands group of Companies to finance the business operations of Monthsahead.com and to achieve its profit targets.

He claimed that the plaintiffs suffered a loss of profit of more than RM307 million over three years as well as the loss of reputation and goodwill, among others.

Defendants deny knowledge

In its statement of defence, Pricewaterhouse (Public Accountants) denied any knowledge of the matter and of the existence of particulars of the written agreement.

As such, it should not be a party to the suit and is not obliged contractually to the plaintiffs. As there was no contract, it said that it does not owe any legal duty to the plaintiffs.

Chin adopted the statement of defence of the other two defendants. He claimed to have no knowledge that Pricewaterhouse had violated the purported agreement and said he should not be a party to the suit.

After the suit was filed, the defendants tried to strike out the suit. Chin succeeded in doing so on Nov 5, 2002. However, on appeal at the Court of Appeal on March 1, 2010, his name was reinserted.