Femi Adi
Bloomberg
Indonesia’s anti-monopoly agency is evaluating Temasek Holdings Pte’s assets in the country and said the government has the right to seize them if a court-imposed fine isn’t paid.
The Singapore state-owned investment company lost its final appeal in the Supreme Court on May 24 for violating antitrust laws, the Indonesian court said on its website at the time. A fine of 150 billion rupiah ($17 million), which includes 15 billion rupiah for each of 10 Temasek-linked companies involved in the case, was set, the anti-monopoly agency said.
“We’re now inventorying Temasek’s assets and expect to complete that in 2011, and they will be seized if the fine isn’t paid,” Tresna Soemardi, the agency’s chairman, said in a phone interview yesterday.
The Indonesian competition regulator KPPU has said Temasek breached antitrust laws by using indirect stakes in PT Telekomunikasi Selular, known as Telkomsel, and PT Indosat, the country’s top two mobile-phone service providers, to fix prices.
“Temasek has not received official notification from the Supreme Court,” Goh Yong Siang, Temasek’s senior managing director of strategic relations, said in an e-mailed response to queries.
Calls to the Supreme Court after office hours yesterday weren’t answered.
“Once the company has been formally notified of the fine and doesn’t pay it, the Indonesian anti-monopoly commission may ask for a court order to seize the assets,” Muhammad Reza, the agency’s chief of investigations, said by phone.
Temasek’s Singapore Technologies Telemedia Pte unit sold its stake in Indosat, Indonesia’s second largest mobile-phone services provider, to Qatar Telecom QSC in June 2008 after an earlier district court ruling. A unit of Singapore Telecommunications Ltd., Southeast Asia’s biggest phone operator and majority owned by Temasek, has a 35 percent stake in Telkomsel, the biggest mobile carrier.