Temasek Holdings, the Singapore government investment arm, has lost a final appeal in a price fixing case involving cellcos Telkomsel and Indosat in Indonesia’s Surpreme Court.
Competition regulator KPPU alleged that Temasek had breached the country’s anti-monopoly laws by using its indirect stakes in rival operators Telkomsel and Indosat to fix mobile tariffs.
The Supreme Court yesterday sided with the KPPU overturning Temasek’s appeal for a second time.
“The judicial review panel basically strengthened the previous Supreme Court ruling against the appeal,” KPPU spokesman Junaidi Masjhud toldBloomberg.
He called the ruling “a valuable push for [the] KPPU to continue creating healthy business competition in the telecommunications industry.”
Temasek-controlled Singapore Telecom owns a 35% stake in Indonesia’s largest cellco Telkomsel, while another Temasek company, Singapore Technologies Telemedia, sold its 40.8% stake in Indosat to Qatar Telecom in June 2008 after the KPPU filed its case.
A District Court in Central Java first ruled against Temasek in May 2008.
Temasek has previously said it would seek international arbitration if it lost its court battle in Indonesia, said Bloomberg.