Evidence of conspiracy pieced together by the commission

Supporting its conclusion that concerted action was taken to create the sham competition, the commission produced the following evidence:

Two bidders -- Alpha and Cipta Sarana -- shared information and knowledge for their bids and made 20 similar markups in their bid documents. This collaboration was made possible because Pranata Hajadi was not only an investor but also played an active in the management of both Alpha and Cipta Sarana.

The three bidders submitted the same suggestion to Holdiko to abolish the requirement to make an additional bid deposit of Rp 50 billion and to change the procedures for the payment of the bid deposit.

Bhakti was actually not qualified to be a final bidder because it signed a confidentiality agreement as a precondition to obtain memos, procedures for the submission of the bid, the draft conditional share purchase and loan transfer agreement just one day before the bid's submission deadline.

Cipta Sarana, the winning bidder, was entirely unqualified to bid because it did not sign any confidentiality agreement, never sent any letter of interest to Holdiko and did not legally obtain the memos, procedures for the submission of the bid, the draft conditional share purchase and loan transfer agreement from Holdiko.

Cipta Sarana changed the composition of its shareholders and the boards of its directors and commissioners on Dec. 11 against the bid's rules, which prohibited such changes within 60 days after the Dec. 5 deadline for the submission of the bid.

Deloitte, as Holdiko's financial adviser, together with Holdiko failed to prevent collusive tendering by allowing the three final bidders to take part in the tender, even though they did not meet the required procedures for the bid's submission, thereby inflicting heavy losses to the state.

Because the government, as the seller, suffered a potential loss of Rp 288 billion, the commission ruled that Cipta Sarana pay a penalty of Rp 288 billion, PT Trimegah Securities (head of the Cipta Sarana consortium) was ordered to pay Rp 10.5 billion, Alpha Rp 1.5 billion, businessmen Pranata Hajadi and Jimmy Masrin together Rp 10.5 billion, Bhakti Rp 1 billion, Deloitte Rp 10 billion and Holdiko Rp 5 billion.

The commission has also prohibited both Trimegah Securities and Deloitte from being involved in the future sale of assets held by IBRA for two years, but it stopped short of recommending the annulment of the tender in view of its tremendous impact on the state budget.

-- Vincent Lingga