16 July 2020

The U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has placed a detention order on disposable gloves manufactured by Top Glove Sdn Bhd and TG Medical Sdn Bhd on 15 July 2020.

We are reaching out to the CBP through our office in U.S., customers and consultants, to understand the issue better and work towards a speedy resolution of the matter, within an estimated 2 weeks.

There is a possibility this may be related to foreign labour issues, which we have already resolved, save for one more issue with regard to retrospective payment of recruitment fees by our workers to agents prior to January 2019, without our knowledge. However, Top Glove has already been bearing all recruitment fees since January 2019 when our Zero Recruitment Fee Policy was implemented.

Over the past few months, we have been working on this issue which involves extensive tracing, to establish the correct amount to be paid back to our workers, on behalf of the previous agents. We estimate the total amount to be about RM20 million to RM50 million. We believe it is in the best interests of all parties to come to a solution expeditiously so that our disposable gloves can reach the parties that need it the most, during this COVID-19 time.

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