Total urges court to reject bankruptcy case

French oil giant Total?s lawyer has asked the Jakarta?s commercial court to reject a law suit filed by two local firms for a seizure of assets and declare its Indonesian unit Total E & P Indonesie as bankrupt, the Bisnis Indonesia newspaper reported in its Friday edition.

Assets and the property mentioned in the suit do not belong to Total, but is owned by the government of Indonesia, while the company's office building in Kuningan area, South Jakarta, belongs to a third party,? advocate Fredrik J. Pinakunary said in Jakarta on Thursday.

Fredrik, a practitioner at law firm Lubis, Santos, & Maulana Law Offices, said since the assets do not belong to his client, therefore those assets couldn?t either be transferred or sold to other parties.

Earlier, PT Istana Karang Laut and PT Sanggar Kaltim Jaya, through their layer O.C. Kaligis, had filed a law sit to freeze assets and declare Total E & P Indonesie as bankrupt.

The legal action came after Total E &P allegedly failed to fulfill its obligation to pay US $.7.17 million debt to these two companies. (*)