Team size: Seven

What are the most significant cases or transactions that your legal team has recently been involved in?

I am currently managing a large breach of contracts claim filed against us at the SICC by our former Australian joint venture partner back in 2012 where they had initially claimed damages in excess of US$750m with ancillary proceedings occurring in Indonesia and Australia, a multi-jurisdictional challenge. This is the very first case registered with the SICC, and it is now approaching its final destination at the SCA after ten years in court with multiple factual witnesses and expert witnesses from all over the world. We successfully defended against the claims with the SICC in February 2022, dismissing all claims for loss of chance and wasted expenditure against us and ruling that we were entitled and justified to take the actions that we took. The matter has been appealed up to the SCA and I am confident that we will prevail.

If you have worked in other countries, what are the main challenges unique to operating as an in-house counsel in your current location?

The greatest challenge for an in-house counsel in Indonesia is the lack of certainty in the implementation of laws and regulations by the authorities. Being in a civil law jurisdiction, the concept of binding precedents is generally not practiced by the judiciary, thus resulting in the executive branch also adopting a similar approach to implementing the various laws and regulations of the land. Interpretations are often coloured by the individual government officer’s approach which is either dictated by their personal bias or an internally developed policy, which can often be at odds with the law itself. The different ministries do not regularly communicate with one another and thus do not have a standard approach, which makes undertaking projects that involve multiple government departments a challenge.

The unusual business environment created by the pandemic has been swiftly followed by other shocks. Are you now putting more emphasis on preparing for the unforeseen and, if so, what does this entail?

There is definitely more reliance on technology now than there was two years ago. We have gotten more familiar with applications like Zoom, Teams and Meet and have learned to rely on virtual data rooms instead of just a VPN solution which could risk the safety of our internal servers and data rooms. Working off site or from home is now considered acceptable and we have learned to adapt to less business travel. From the business perspective, being the coal mining industry has insulated us in large part against commercial risks, but we have still managed to learn how to build an effective health bubble at our various operational sites to ensure that our operations face minimal disruptions. All these would serve us well in any future events as we have seen how fast we can adapt.