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.