Dharmala Sakti seeks to annul bankruptcy status
Dharmala Sakti seeks to annul bankruptcy status
JAKARTA (JP): Publicly listed PT Dharmala Sakti Sejahtera has
asked the Supreme Court to annul its bankruptcy status, claiming
that the verdict is legally flawed.
Dharmala Sakti's lawyer Jimmy Chandra Maschur said on Monday
that the verdict issued by the Jakarta Commercia Court in early
June breached standard procedures.
"There were irregularities during court procedures by which
Dharmala Sakti was declared bankrupt," Jimmy said, adding the
company had filed an appeal to protest the decision.
The majority creditors of Dharmala Sakti voted in early June
to bankrupt the listed company after they turned down the
latter's debt restructuring proposal.
A day after the vote, the Commercial Court, on behalf of the
creditors, officially declared Dharmala Sakti bankrupt.
According to an existing law, a company which is declared
bankrupt due to a vote by creditors can not make an appeal.
Jimmy said the voting was held prematurely, adding that the
Jakarta Commercial Court should have given Dharmala Sakti time to
revise its debt restructuring proposal to persuade the voting
creditors.
"Depriving Dharmala Sakti of its rights has sent the company
into bankruptcy," Jimmy said.
He also criticized that the weighting of the vote of each
creditor was based on a wrong rupiah to U.S. dollar exchange
rate.
Dharmala Sakti owes debts in both rupiah and dollars to
various creditors.
"The result of the voting was invalid as it was not using the
appropriate rupiah to dollar exchange rate as published by Bank
Indonesia," Jimmy said.
Joint venture creditor PT Hanil Bakrie Finance Corporation
filed a bankruptcy suit in mid-February against Dharmala Sakti
for the latter's failure to repay a US$2.4 million matured debt.
Dharmala Sakti then asked the court to hold off issuing a
verdict in the bankruptcy suit, which was filed in order to allow
the holding company to negotiate its debt restructuring with the
creditors.
In the 1998 Bankruptcy Law the request is possible as
stipulated in its suspension of payment section, which says that
a company facing a bankruptcy suit can temporarily halt the
action by filing a suspension of payment request to the court.
Under the suspension of payment procedure, the fate of the
company would be decided by the creditors' majority vote instead
of court ruling.
Among the largest creditors of Dharmala Sakti who participated
in the voting process were the Indonesian Bank Restructuring
Agency (IBRA), Hong Kong-based Peregrine Fixed Income, currently
in liquidation, the Singapore branch of the Canadian Imperial
Bank of Commerce (CIBC), joint venture PT AB Sinar Mas Finance
and the Jakarta branch of the Standard Chartered Bank.
Dharmala Sakti is a holding company of the Dharmala Group,
owned by the Gondokusumo family.
There are five companies affiliated with the Dharmala Group
which have been declared bankrupt: PT Dharmala Agrifood, PT Putra
Surya Multidana, PT Deemte Sakti Indo, PT Putra Sejahtera Persada
and foreign affiliate Detron Ltd. of Singapore. (udi)