Insurer Manulife questions police's professionalism

Insurer Manulife questions police's professionalism

JAKARTA (JP): Insurance company PT Asuransi Jiwa Manulife
Indonesia (AJMI) questioned on Wednesday the police's
professionalism in handling the case involving the disputed sale
of a 40 percent stake in the company to its Canadian-based parent
company.

The insurance firm accused the police of excluding two "key
players" in the alleged sales scam, currently under police
investigation.

AJMI was referring to the Virgin Islands-based Roman Gold
Assets, which claimed to be the legal owner of the 40 percent
stake in AJMI, and the former directors of the now bankrupt PT
Dharmala Sakti Sejahtera, which previously owned the shares.

"Despite concrete legal evidence that Dharmala could not have
legally sold the shares and that Roman Gold could not have
legally bought them, the resulting police investigation has only
focussed on the Manulife purchase," AJMI said in a statement.

The dispute between Roman Gold on the one hand and AJMI and
its parent company insurance firm Manufacturer Life Insurance Co.
(Manulife) on the other, centers around the legal ownership of a
40 percent stake in AJMI.

Roman Gold reported AJMI to the police on charges that the
latter had duplicated its own share certificates.

Roman Gold based its claim on the fact that it had acquired
the 40 stake in AJMI a few days before Manulife did.

"The police have completely failed to investigate the
legitimacy of the Roman Gold claim," AJMI went on.

The insurance firm said that the police were ignoring separate
investigations into the case by the Capital Markets Supervisory
Agency (Bapepam) and the Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency
(IBRA).

IBRA was among the 23 creditors that filed a bankruptcy
petition against Dharmala in the Jakarta Commercial Court.

Dharmala is a publicly listed company on the Jakarta Stock
Exchange.

The court declared Dharmala bankrupt in June, and it later
held an auction of Dharmala assets so that its creditors could
recover part of their loans.

Manulife was the sole bidder during the auction of the 40
percent stake in AJMI, for which it paid Rp 170 billion (some
US$17.89 million)

The purchase raised its stake in AJMI to 91 percent from 51
percent. A subsidiary of the World Bank, the International
Finance Corporation (IFC), owns the remaining nine percent.

Roman Gold then disputed the auction, saying that it had
earlier acquired the 40 percent stake from a Singapore-based
firm, Highmead Limited.

It said that Highmead was the holder of a Power of Attorney,
issued by Dharmala's former directors, authorizing the sale of
the 40 percent stake.

However, Bapepam's own preliminary investigation showed that
Dharmala had never disclosed the existence of such a document.

Although AJMI filed its own criminal charges against Roman
Gold and the former directors of Dharmala last month, thus far
the police have yet to report any progress in the case.

At present, the executives of AJMI and court officers,
including a judge, remain the subject of police investigation.
(bkm)