Court may confiscate Caltex office in Rumbai

PT Caltex Pacific Indonesia (CPI) has finally lost its legal battle against PT Buckwar John Baspuri after the Supreme Court recently issued a decision to confiscate the oil giant's main office in Rumbai, one of regencies in Riau.

The Supreme Court issued a decree early this year allowing the local court to seize the oil giant's main office in Rumbai for its failure to honor its contract agreement with PT Buckwar, Riau Pos reported on Thursday.

The daily reported that the local court had issued a ruling to enforce the confiscation order. But CPI said that the court decision got the wrong target because the oil giant's main office and all its assets in the province are owned by the state owned oil company Pertamina.

"All of those assets are owned by Pertamina, not ours," Poedyo Oetomo, a spokesman for Caltex was quoted by the daily as saying.

Caltex has asked the local court to delay the Supreme Court decision. At least two of four letters sent by the oil giant to the local court to ask for the delay in the court execution had been rejected.

Fadri Afdal, a senior executive of PT Buckwar, said Caltex's reasons to delay the Supreme Court's ruling had no legal bases. "In the contract, Caltex did mention any thing about Pertamina. Now they said that the assets are owned by Pertamina," he said.

He, however, said that the confiscation of the oil giant's main office in Rumbai was not the main target. "We will first try to block Caltex's bank accounts. If we could not find any accounts under the name of Caltex Rumbai, we would then have no choice but to confiscate its main office," Fadri added. (*)