Distrust in commercial court

JAKARTA (JP): Sudjono, deputy chairman of the Indonesian Bar Association, deplored the increasing preference among Indonesian bankers to settle disputes with debtors at the high court in Singapore as lack of nationalism.

However, most lawyers here saw the tendency simply as creditors' distrust in the seven-month old commercial court in Jakarta caused by the controversial decisions the court made over the past few months which appeared to favor mostly debtors.

Sudjono made the comment to Antara over the weekend in connection with the law suit filed by a consortium of nine domestic and foreign creditors, led by Hong Kong-registered Bali International Finance, at the high court in Singapore, against Bambang Sutrisno, a former shareholder of the now defunct Bank Surya.

Bali International, a unit of Bank Bali in Jakarta, and the other creditors sued Sutrisno for the failure of Jakarta-based PT Surya Supratama Finance, to settle its syndicated debt to the creditor consortium. Sutrisno acted as the guarantor of Surya Supratama's debt by pledging his assets as securities to the syndicated loan.

The high court in Singapore decided in favor of the creditors late last year and issued an injunction prohibiting Sutrisno and his wife, Gina Widjaja, from disposing their assets in Singapore.