Court verdicts obstruct the law

Court verdicts obstruct the law

We are the representative lawyers of a Bank, acting as the
plaintiff.

There are three verdicts of the South Jakarta District Court
which make us very disappointed.

First, the Court issued a verdict in favor of a third party
who was not a party involved in a case. Supreme Court
jurisprudence states that a judgment only has an implication for
the parties concerned.

This is the summary of the case: where A is the Bank creditor
and B is the debtor company. The latter never paid their debt. C
is the company which is not party to the case.

In the credit agreement it is stipulated that, for as long as
the credit agreement is valid, the debtor is not allowed to lend
the money to any other party without first obtaining written
permission from the creditor.

In court, B (debtor) made an admission to the effect that
money had been lent to a third party (C) without the creditor's
approval. The court then ruled that B is exempted from paying A
because B lent the money to C. How illogical!

The second and third verdicts relate to the following. A is a
Bank creditor, while E and F are debtors. When we summoned the
debtors they replied that the credit is a swap loan and had been
settled by the Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency (IBRA). When
we confirmed these details with IBRA, they replied that no swap
loan existed in this case, and we were authorized to collect the
money from the debtors.

Based on IBRA's letter we decided to file a lawsuit against
the debtor via the District Court.

At the conclusion of proceedings I stressed to the presiding
judges that a swap loan had never existed in this case, which the
judges asked the Registrar to note in the transcript of the
proceedings.

In the end the South Jakarta District Court rejected our
claim, insisting that the legal basis for their decision was the
swap loan.

The Court's judgments have only served to obstruct the law.

TUMBUR SIMBOLON

Legal Consultant

Jakarta