Singapore court rejects Bank Bali unit loan case
Singapore court rejects Bank Bali unit loan case
SINGAPORE (Dow Jones): Singapore's highest court has in effect dismissed a suit over a loan default filed against an Indonesian businessman currently living in Singapore, saying that Singapore isn't the place the case should be heard.
The Singapore Court of Appeals issued a "stay," halting proceedings in the case in which nine Hong Kong-based creditors -- mostly Hong Kong units of Indonesian banks -- had sued Bambang Sutrisno.
Bambang is a former Jakarta business partner of Sudwikatmono, a cousin of former president Soeharto.
The creditors were led by Bali International Finance Ltd., a unit of PT Bank Bali. The syndicate lent US$16.5 million to PT Surya Supratama Finance in 1997. Bambang, who then partly owned the Golden Truly supermarket chain, guaranteed the loan that was signed in Hong Kong.
The court agreed to a stay after Bambang's lawyers said Singapore wasn't an appropriate forum because both sides had extensive ties to Indonesia. The judges didn't elaborate on their decision, which overturns a lower court's ruling.
Kenneth Tan, senior counsel appearing for Bambang, also contended that lawyers for the creditors were trying "to prove some sinister motive" for Bambang moving to Singapore from Jakarta in 1997.
"He's just uprooting, he's just waiting, like many Indonesians, to see what happens in Indonesia," Tan said.
M. Sivakumar Vivekanandan, representing the creditors, said there were many connections between the case and Singapore. The loan that's in default was an offshore loan, not a domestic one in Indonesia, he said.
Some Singapore lawyers speculated that the ruling could affect how future loan agreements in the region are written or where potential disputes are adjudicated.
Lawyers for Bali International Finance argued in court that the creditors brought the case in Singapore because Bambang is now living in Singapore and, in their view, he has substantial assets in the island.
The Singapore suit against Bambang was criticized last month by some Indonesian legislators, who accused Bank Bali of acting unpatriotically for taking the case to a court in Singapore rather than in Indonesia.
In a related development, 50 students demonstrated in front of Bank Bali's headoffice in Jakarta on Thursday morning in protest against what they alleged as unpatriotic act of the bank's management in bringing its business dispute with Bambang to the Singapore court.
The demonstrators, who were members of the Forum of Concerned Students, urged Bank Bali's management to withdraw its lawsuit from the Singapore court and file it instead in a Jakarta court.