Court annulls bankruptcy case against Tirtamas
Court annulls bankruptcy case against Tirtamas
JAKARTA (JP): The Central Jakarta Commercial Court annulled on
Monday a bankruptcy case by the Indonesian Bank Restructuring
Agency (IBRA) against giant trading company PT Tirtamas
Comexindo, on doubts of the petition's legality.
Judge Mahdi Soroinda Nasution said the court declared IBRA's
case as legally void, because documents that showed IBRA as
Tirtamas' creditor contained legal flaws.
Subsequently, the court also canceled a voting of Tirtamas'
suspension of payment appeal. "Therefore, conditions will return
to as they were before the bankruptcy case was filed," Mahdi said
during the hearing.
IBRA said it would appeal the court's ruling.
Tirtamas owes some Rp 1.5 trillion (US$157.89 million) to
various banks and non-financial institutions, of which IBRA
represented Bank Tamara with loans of Rp 38.19 billion.
The agency's lawyer Tony Aries described the court's ruling as
too "daring".
"I cannot understand how the court can make that decision
while efforts for a suspension of payment has come to a dead-
end," Tony told reporters following the hearing.
Tony was representing IBRA in the suspension of payment
hearing, while in the bankruptcy case, the agency was represented
by Abdul Hakim G Nusantara & Partners law office.
Abdul Hakim, however, did not attend the hearing, and the
court decided it will announce the same verdict again on Thursday
on his presence.
According to Tony, if the court has doubts about IBRA's
documents, then their legality should have been first tested in
the state court.
The documents concerned a cassie agreement, or factoring,
between IBRA and Bank Tamara on Tirtamas' loans.
Although IBRA claimed the documents to be valid, but in a
different case, the very same cassie agreement that was referred
to was legally flawed.
Court documents revealed that the attorney generals' office,
which represented IBRA in another bankruptcy case against Bank
Pelita, acknowledged the cassie agreement to be flawed.
Among the mistakes the attorney general's office cited was the
absence of a notary's office signature on the cassie agreement.
"The attorney's claim is one sided... it's not our claim but
it's theirs," Tony said.
He said that the attorney general's office must first verify
its finding with IBRA, as it is the grantor of the office's power
of attorney.
Tirtamas' legal representative Hotman Paris Hutapea said that
since the attorney general's office made the claim fully on
behalf of IBRA, a disagreement between them should not have
occurred.
He further dismissed the likelihood that IBRA could make an
appeal on the case.
"To my knowledge, a suspension of payment ruling cannot be
appealed," Hotman said. (bkm)