Foreign bankruptcy claim denied: Court

JAKARTA (JP): The Jakarta Commercial Court rejected on Monday a US$65 million bankruptcy petition filed by three foreign banks against BII Finance Center, an affiliate of publicly listed Bank Internasional Indonesia.

The presiding judge said the petition was rejected because BII Finance no longer had any matured debts after it and its creditors signed a debt restructuring agreement in April.

"We see evidence that a debt restructuring agreement was mutually agreed to and signed by both creditors and borrower," she said.

The plaintiff's lawyer Sugeng Santoso of Pangaribuan, Pondaag & Santoso law firm said his client would appeal the decision to the Supreme Court.

According to Sugeng, BII Finance never signed the debt restructuring agreement sent to it by his client.

"The defendant did not sign the debt restructuring agreement and returned it to my client as their signal of disapproval," he said.

We did not see the countersigned copy of the debt restructuring agreement until the defendant used it as evidence in court, Sugeng said.

BII Finance lawyer Hotman Paris Hutapea said his client approved the debt restructuring agreement and countersigned it in late April, one to two weeks after receiving the document from the plaintiff.

"There is automatically no matured debt after that debt restructuring agreement in April," he said, adding his client might file a lawsuit against the foreign banks for defamation.

The bankruptcy claim was jointly filed by Bahrain-based Arab Banking Corporation, Credit Agricole Indosuez of France and Seoul-based Asian Banking Corporation in early July.

The three foreign banks are the agent banks for three syndication bank loans totaling $65.3 million.

According to the three banks, the loans matured between October 1998 and January 1999. (udi)