Bank Niaga faults Gatra report

Bank Niaga faults Gatra report

JAKARTA (JP): Publicly listed Bank Niaga objects to a report
run by Gatra weekly magazine in its July 10 edition, the bank's
president Rudy Capelle said on Friday.

"The report was not balanced," Rudy told a press conference in
the News Cafe in South Jakarta.

The bank's lawyer, Andrey Sitanggang, said the bank had not
yet decided to file a lawsuit against the media.

"For the time being, we are just warning the magazine," Andrey
said.

According to Rudy, the report entitled Berbalas Bantahan di
Harian (War of Words in Dailies) was about a dispute between the
bank and another company, PT Jakarta International Hotel &
Development (JIHD), over a derivative transaction.

He said Bank Niaga was not satisfied with the article since
Gatra "did not quote the substance of our statement".

"It seemed to us that the magazine backed our opponent in the
dispute," he said.

The dispute, he said, is still being examined at the South
Jakarta District Court.

The publication of the bank's complaint letter in its July 17
edition and the magazine's apology in its readers' column for the
"misunderstanding" did not help either, Rudy said.

"It's not enough. Gatra wrote the article on one full page,
but they published our letter just in a small space. It's also
not about a misunderstanding," he said.

Gatra reporter Irwan Andri Atmanto, who also attended the
press meeting, said: "We are not obliged to publish all the
statements, are we?" (jun)