On Thursday, Manulife Indonesia was falsely declared bankrupt in the Jakarta Commercial Court as a result of a suit brought by the bankuptcy curator of PT Dharmala Sakti Sejahtera (DSS), Manulife Indonesia’s former joint venture partner. A curator is appointed by an Indonesian court, and acts much like a receiver.

Manulife Financial Corp. says there is no legal basis for this extraordinary decision, and it believes that the judge, Hasan Basri, has received significant financial enticement to make this ruling. The DSS curator, Sukran, is closely associated with the Gondokusumo family, the previous owners of DSS.

Manulife Financial says Manulife Indonesia is not insolvent. It is one of the largest life insurers in Indonesia with more than 10% share of the country’s life insurance market and the largest foreign insurance company in the country with 3.1 trillion rupiah (Cdn$400 million) in assets.

“Manulife remains proud and committed to our business in Indonesia,” said Dominic D’Alessandro, president and CEO of Manulife Financial. “We are doing everything we can to ensure that our 320,000 customers and 3,500 employees in Indonesia will not be negatively impacted by these criminal acts.”

“Manulife has no intention of leaving Indonesia now or in the future,” added Vic Apps, executive vice president and General Manager for Asia. “Manulife will protest the ruling to the highest levels available and will fight what is clearly an outrageous decision with all the tools at our disposal.”

“Manulife is pleased that the Canadian Ambassador in Jakarta as well as many Indonesian government ministers are working to help us in this difficult situation. The Ministry of Finance and the Insurance Commissioner of Indonesia have already indicated their support to Manulife. While we have many friends in Indonesia, they have as of yet been unable to stop these criminals,” says Apps.