For the past three years, Gunawan Jusuf’s name keeps appearing on several district courts case registration system, either for filing lawsuits or being sued. This year is no exception. On August 30, 2018, Gunawan and several parties filed a pre-trial lawsuit at the South Jakarta District Court against the National Police’s Criminal Investigation Unit (Bareskrim), at the heart of the lawsuit is the prolonged dispute between Gunawan’s Makindo group and businessman Toh Keng Siong. The root of the dispute can be traced back to a cooperation agreement the parties entered into over two decades ago.
In 2016, Gunawan Jusuf must continue his decades-long dispute with Salim Group. The trials regarding this dispute continue until recently (link: http://yosefardi.com/2017/03/17/sugar-group-v-salim-group-the-dispute-continues/). Last year, it’s Bambang Trihatmodjo’s turn.
On December 5, 2017, the South Jakarta District Court registered a pre-trial lawsuit against the General Crimes Directorate of the Bareskrim. At the heart of the lawsuit is the Bareskrim’s investigation on Gunawan based on PT Bumi Sumber Sari Sakti’s police report. PT Bumi Sumber Sari Sakti belongs to Bambang Trihatmodjo, the first son of the late President Soeharto. But the source of the problem is a land dispute that started way back to the 1980s. Long story short, Bambang’s Company claimed that two plots of their land (approximately covering an area of 25,000 hectares) were borrowed by Gunawan’s PT Gula Putih Mataram. Nearly 25 years later, the Company realized that their land certificate had expired in December 2010 and had to be extended. Thus the Company submitted a request for renewal of the certificate for the first plot of land in February 2011, but despite applying for a renewal, the Head of the Lampung Land Agency never followed up on or replied to the application submitted.
It was later found out that the request for the renewal of the certificate submitted by the Company could not be processed because the land agency had issued a certificate for the very same land for PT Gula Putih Mataram. The dispute was brought to the Jakarta State Administrative Court, but the court stated that the Company did not have the legal standing to file a lawsuit. The verdict remains to the stage of reconsideration in 2016. But the dispute was not over. On April 2017, a legal counsel who represented PT Bumi Sumber Sari Sakti filed a police report against Gunawan and one M. Fauzi Thoha, the leader of the Sugar Group Company and father of then Governor of Lampung Ridho Ficardo. The police, adding fuel to the fire, somehow issued a warrant of continuation of investigation No. SP.Sidik/896 Subdit I/VI/2017/Dit.Tipidum.
Because of the warrant, on December 5, 2017, Gunawan and Fauzi filed a pre-trial lawsuit at the South Jakarta District Court, asking the court to prohibit PT Bumi Sumber Sari Sakti and parties working for them from filing a criminal lawsuit in any form against Gunawan, Fauzi, PT Gula Putih Mataram, and the disputed object.
Lucky for Gunawan, on January 18, 2018, the court decided to grant his lawsuit stating that the warrant No. SP.Sidik/896 Subdit I/VI/2017/DIT.Tipidum void. Therefore all process of investigation must be stopped.
After several months of peace, on August 30, 2018, Gunawan again filed a pre-trial lawsuit. This time, the lawsuit is related to his long dispute with one Toh Keng Siong. When talking about Toh Keng Siong and his Hong Kong-based Aperchance Capital Limited, we also talked about Gunawan’s Makindo group.
Toh Keng Siong started his ill-fated relationship with Makindo in 1997 when Claudine Jusuf, Gunawan’s wife, went on a business roadshow to Singapore. According to Toh Keng Siong, from their meeting at the time, he agreed to use Makindo’s service as an agent to save his money in form of deposit because at the time the interest rates in Indonesia were high.
Until the end of 1998, Toh Keng Siong reportedly transferred a sum of US$60 million and for each deposit, Aperchance receives proof of time deposit confirmation, confirmation sheet containing information about transaction date, payment due date, interest rate, amount of money deposited, and disbursement guarantee from Makindo. But there is a twist, there were no bill of deposit as proof that the money had been deposited in the bank.
Initially, the cooperation went well, that’s why Toh Keng Siong increasingly believed in Makindo and thus increased his transferred money. Until 2002, the total funds provided by Toh Keng Siong reportedly reached US$133 million.
In the period 1999 to 2002, Aperchance said they repeatedly asked for the money due to be paid. But there was no realization from Makindo. When the deposit was due at the end of 2002, Aperchance no longer wanted to extend the deposit of funds and requested that all funds to be returned, but Makindo refused to return the money because the Company did not feel that they had become an investment agent for Aperchance.
Toh Keng Siong then filed a lawsuit in Singapore court, but the court refused to examine the case because the location of the incident was in Indonesia and Singapore’s law had no right to adjudicate. Toh Keng Siong then reported the case to the Indonesian police in 2004. But in the investigation process, Claudine resisted by providing evidence in the form of Aperchance financial balance in 2000 and 2001 signed by Toh Keng Siong. The balance sheet states that the financial or trading transaction for the year were only HK$10,000 and there was no time deposit at Makindo. The police finally stopped the investigation.
After the police stopped their investigation, Toh Keng Siong requested Lucas’ help with his legal counsel, bringing evidences in the form of statements from Merryl Lynch International Bank Limited and BNP Paribas Hong Kong that they had sent Aperchance funds to Makindo’s account at Credit Suisse Singapore and UBS AG Bank Singapore. With this new evidence, Lucas then submitted a new report to the police. But the police did not consider the evidence as new evidence so the police could not cancel the termination of the investigation. Until 2006, Toh Keng Siong repeatedly tried to convince the police to initiate an investigation and even reported this case to the Capital Market Supervisory Agency (Bapepam) and to the Directorate General of Taxation but to no avail.
Six years later in 2012, the South Jakarta District Court granted the pre-trial lawsuit filed by Lucas on behalf of his client and therefore the police can continue investigating the case (link: http://yosefardi.com/2012/05/11/tong-keng-siong-vs-gunawan-jusuf/). But the situation in favor of Toh Keng Siong did not last long because at the stage of Consideration in December 2013, the Supreme Court decided to annul the district court’s verdict.
Toh Keng Siong once again filed a police report in 2016. The police report registered as report No. Lp/853/VIII2016/Bareskrim dated August 22, 2016. And this time the Bareskrim actually responded to the report. The Bareskrim began an investigation in September 2016 by issuing warrant No. Sp.Sidik/547/IX/2016/Dit Tipideksus. The warrant of commencement of inquisition (according to the court registry) was issued on December 1, 2016 with warrant No. B/172/XII/2016/Dit Tipideksus. The police then issued warrant No. Sp. Sidik/33/I/2018/Dit Tipideksus on January 4, 2018 and warrant No. Sp. Sidik/299/VI/Res.2.3/2018/Dit Tipideksus on June 29, 2018.
Related to this police investigation, on August 30, 2018, Gunawan Jusuf together with one Irwan Ang and PT Makindo filed a pre-trial lawsuit at the South Jakarta District Court. The lawsuit is registered as Case No. 102/Pid.Pra/2018/PN JKT.SEL. In the lawsuit, the plaintiffs ask the court to grant their petition and to cancel the investigation.
The trial was supposed to be held earlier this week, but representatives from the Bareskrim did not attend the trial so the trial was postponed until September 24, 2018. If the parties were present at the hearing then, the defendant or the Bareskrim should give an answer to the lawsuit the next day. The trial is to enter the verification stage on September 26, 2018. So the presiding judge can give a decision on October 1, 2018.
By Pradnya Paramitha
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