Embattled state fund 1MDB’s deadline is today, to pay International Petroleum Investment Company (IPIC) RM2.58 billion over its settlement agreement.

The payment is due by July 31 midnight, New York-time, which would mean 1MDB has until noon in Malaysia today.

This transaction would be the first significant foreign transaction from 1MDB, aside from assets disposals, since its scandals began in 2015, as well as since the US Department of Justice (DOJ) filed its civil forfeiture suits on US$1.7 billion 1MDB-linked assets.

This payment is the first of two expected from 1MDB to IPIC. The second transaction of equal amount is due by Dec 31 this year.

The total amount 1MDB will be paying IPIC is US$1.205 billion (RM5.16 billion) as part of the settlement agreement.

It is also worth noting that the Ministry of Finance, who is the guarantor, will have to meet any of 1MDB’s obligations if the firm fails to do so.

Ironically, IPIC had been helping 1MDB meet its debt obligations since 2015, with the Abu Dhabi-firm lending 1MDB RM1 billion that year to help repay a US$975 million loan from Deutsche Bank.

As part of the deal, IPIC had also agreed to help 1MDB service interest payments on US$3.5 billion worth of bonds from Goldman Sachs.

The two companies had also agreed to enter into “good faith discussions”, over some separate US$3.5 billion in transactions from 1MDB to IPIC that never arrived and had allegedly disappeared.

The US$3.5 billion amount was sent in several tranches, the first being a US$1.367 billion “security deposit” in 2012 for IPIC co-guaranteeing the US3.5 billion bonds. The second was US$993 million paid to IPIC for termination options, and finally, US$855 million and US$295 million were also sent to IPIC as “top-up security deposits”.

All of these transactions were sent to Aabar Investments PJS Ltd (British Virgin Islands), which 1MDB claims was a subsidiary of IPIC.

IPIC, however, claims it does not have such a subsidiary and that it never received any of the money.