Attorney General's Office names PT TPL a corporate suspect in transfer pricing case
Jakarta (ANTARA) - The investigation team of the Attorney General’s Special Crimes Unit (Jampidsus) has named PT Toba Pulp Lestari (TPL) Tbk a corporate suspect in an alleged corruption case involving transfer pricing and under-invoicing by the company to other corporate entities between 2008 and 2025.
“Based on the results of the investigation, the team of investigators has today designated the corporation PT TPL Tbk as a suspect,” said Saiful Bahri Siregar, Director of Investigation at Jampidsus of the Attorney General’s Office, at the Jampidsus building in Jakarta on Monday.
Saiful explained that investigators had examined 112 witnesses, including one acting on behalf of a director of PT TPL, and had seized a number of documents and electronic pieces of evidence.
The investigation established that PT TPL, which operates in the wood pulp processing and forestry industries, was formerly named PT IIU under its deed of establishment No. 329 dated 29 April 1983.
Between 2008 and 2025, PT TPL exported pulp products to its affiliate, DP Macao Marketing International Ltd, and made local sales to its affiliate, Asia Pacific Rayon.
In carrying out these business activities, PT TPL is alleged to have acted unlawfully through under-invoicing by altering or manipulating the Harmonized System (HS) Code of its products, thereby changing the characteristics, uses, and price value of the products.
“What should have been dissolving pulp was changed to paper grade pulp or bleached hardwood kraft pulp, or BHKP,” said Saiful.
In carrying out these pulp export and local sales transactions, PT TPL was obliged to submit transfer pricing (TP) documents and corporate tax returns to the tax service office for an examination of the fairness of transaction prices.
However, the company submitted transaction reports that were not as they should have been.
“PT TPL Tbk unlawfully cooperated with authorised officials so that no supervision was carried out. And in conducting reviews, the examination of working papers and examination result reports was not based on the audit programme prepared by state officials, so the authorised officials did not conduct price comparisons on the TP documents and corporate tax returns of PT TPL,” Saiful explained.
PT TPL’s unlawful actions with the authorised officials resulted in state financial losses provisionally estimated at around Rp2 trillion.
For its actions, PT TPL Tbk is suspected of violating Article 6 Primair 603 in conjunction with Article 20 letter a or letter c of Law Number 1 of 2023 on the Criminal Code, in conjunction with Article 18 of Law Number 31 of 1999 on the Eradication of Corruption, in conjunction with Law Number 20 of 2021 on the Amendment to Law Number 31 of 1999 on the Eradication of Corruption.
Previously, investigators at Jampidsus of the Attorney General’s Office had named two suspects in this case, namely BP and SR, who served as tax examination supervisors for PT TPL.