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)