Who Is The KT Corporation, The South Korean Company That Lost To The Duet Hary Tanoe And Hotman Paris

Conglomerate Hary Tanoesoedibjo. (Photo: Instagram @ hary.tanoesoedibjo)

JAKARTA - PT Global Mediacom TBK (BMTR), a company owned by Hary Tanoesoedibjo, was sued for bankruptcy at the Central Jakarta District Court (PN Jakpus) by KT Corporation, a telecommunications company from South Korea. This lawsuit is not the first time that KT Corporation has filed.

Then, who is KT Corporation? According to the official page on the company's website, KT Corporation is an integrated telecommunications service provider based in South Korea. This company was first established in 1981.

KT Corporation's main services include cellular voice, cable telephone, broadband, and media services, which consist of IPTV and satellite TV. In addition, KT Corporation also has a portfolio of subsidiaries that participate in industries such as financial services and real estate.

In Indonesia, this South Korean company exhibited 5G wireless technology and services during the Asian Games held in Jakarta in 2018. In collaboration with Telkomsel, this service was exhibited at the KT 5G Zone located at the Gelora Bung Karno Main Stadium (GBK).

The KT 5G Zone provides viewers or visitors to the Asian Games at GBK an interactive experience through various future technologies. One of them is the Free View technology which allows the user to choose from real-time shots and view them from various points of view in stereoscopic vision.

In South Korea, KT Corporation together with Intel, for the first time deployed a 5G network at the venue for the Winter Olympics held in Pyeongchang, South Korea, taking place in February 2018 covering 22 5G link units for 10 sports venues. As quoted by Techradar, the total device is capable of providing a network capacity of 3,800 terabytes.

The network is estimated to contribute to the economy of up to 27 billion US dollars by 2025 or 1.5 percent of South Korea's gross domestic product (GDP). They estimate that number will increase to at least US $ 42 billion or 2.1 percent of South Korea's GDP by 2030.

The cooperation between Global Mediacom and KT Corporation was established in 2003. According to the 2005 KT financial report, the company made an investment of US $ 10 billion in PT Mobile-8 Telecom (now PT Smartfren Telecom Tbk or FREN). The investment took place in October 2003, when KT had not yet merged with its parent company and was still named KT Freetel Co Ltd.

In 2006, KT Corporation sued Global Mediacom to the International Court of Arbitration (ICC) for default against the Put and Call Option Agreement dated June 9, 2006 (Option Agreement).

Case verdict

This case was decided on November 18, 2010. At that time, BMTR was required to purchase 406,611,912 shares of PT. KT Corporation's Mobile-8 Telecom Tbk (Smartfren) at a price of US $ 13,850,966 plus interest calculated starting on July 6, 2009.

On 29 July 2015, BMTR received a notification (aanmaning) from the Central Jakarta District Court regarding the implementation of the ICC decision. However, the execution was not carried out because in the court process regarding the validity of the Option Agreement, KT lost up to the level of reconsideration at the Supreme Court.

In July 2020, KT Corporation filed for bankruptcy against Global Mediacom and received case number 33 / Pdt.Sus-Pailit / 2020 / PN Niaga Jkt.Pst and submitted it to the Supreme Court.

After experiencing a feud with KT Corporation for more than a decade, the company owned by the conglomerate Hary Tanoesoedibjo, PT Global Mediacom Tbk (BMTR) succeeded in winning the appeal process for the bankruptcy application submitted by the South Korean company.

This success, based on the issuance of a decision on February 24, 2020, which stated that the lawsuit was rejected at the cassation level.

"Thus, as of the intended date, the rejection of the bankruptcy petition has permanent legal force," wrote the management of the company owned by the 33rd richest person in Indonesia, quoted on Thursday, March 4.

Global Mediacom's attorney, Hotman Paris Hutapea, said that his team succeeded in winning the lawsuit, so the bankruptcy lawsuit filed by KT against Global Mediacom was rejected by the Central Jakarta District Court.

"Finally, the Hotman Paris team, a lawyer from the holding company MNC Group that a Korean company tried to bankrupt. Another great Korean company lawyer, doctor Amir Syamsuddin, the former Minister of Law and Human Rights [period 19 October 2011 - 20 October 2014]," said Hotman Paris in his Instagram account, @hotmanparisofficial, on Wednesday, November 30, 2020.