Court freezes Senayan's assets

Court freezes Senayan's assets

Urip Hudiono, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The Central Jakarta District Court has slapped an asset
preservation order on the management of Senayan Square complex in
order to stop it disposing of assets before a court case began.

Acting on the order issued by Judge Mulyani on Oct. 15, court
bailiff Jeri D. Rampen officially declared on Thursday the site's
20 hectares of land and all its buildings now under the court's
supervision, pending a case between the state Bung Karno Sports
Complex Management Board, and Senayan Square owners Kojima
Overseas Asia Pte. Ltd, a Singapore-based subsidiary of Japanese
real estate company Kojima Corporation.

The frozen assets include the upmarket Plaza Senayan mall, the
Sentral Senayan office building, the Plaza Senayan apartment
towers, their parking and food court buildings, and the Plaza
Senayan Annex Living Stone building, which is currently under
construction.

"Customers can still visit the shopping mall and tenants can
still carry out their business as usual," said Teguh Budiono, the
legal affairs manager of Senayan Square management PT Senayan
Trikarya Sempana, an affiliate of Kojima.

Representatives of Kojima and Senayan Trikarya expressed their
disappointment about the asset preservation order as they said
they had never received a summons from the court.

The seizure was unnecessary as the assets were fixed and could
not possibly be removed in an attempt to encumber the trial, they
said.

The Bung Karno board filed a civil suit on Oct. 5 against
Kojima, accusing it of reneging on its agreement in July 1989,
which allowed Kojima to develop 20-hectares of the area under a
40-year build, operate and transfer (BOT) scheme, in return for
the funding and construction of the Athletes Center.

Both parties had agreed to give 70 percent of Senayan
Trikarya's to Kojima, while the board had received 10 percent.
The remaining 20 percent is owned by developer PT Aditya
Wirabakti.

Bung Karno board executive director Yasidi Hambali said the
agreement was unfair. Kojima had yet to create the Athletes
Center, while eight hectares of the site valued at US$34.39
million also remained undeveloped. The board also considered the
Senayan Trikarya's annual rent payment for the site at only
$400,000 as undervalued.

The board has demanded US$225 million in compensation for
losses the state has suffered from the agreement.

Yasidi did not explain why the board had only recently begun
to question the agreement.

Board lawyers said they ended up bringing the case to court
after attempts to renegotiate the agreement failed, as Kojima and
Senayan Trikarya said they could not do so without the consent of
parent company Kojima Corporation.

Kojima and Senayan Trikarya, meanwhile, said the agreement had
been in effect for 15 years without any previous complaints from
the sports complex management board.