http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/25/business/chevron-criticizes-ruling-by-indonesias-supreme-court-on-corruption.html 2014-10-24 15:59:47 Chevron Criticizes Ruling by Indonesia’s Supreme Court on Corruption The company’s legal team has accused the Indonesian attorney general’s office of malicious prosecution. === JAKARTA, Indonesia — The Supreme Court announced on its website this week that it had upheld the 2013 conviction of the Chevron employee, Bachtiar Abdul Fatah, who was part of a soil cleanup program, after an appeal from both the defense and state prosecutors. The court doubled his prison sentence to four years from two. Two other Indonesian employees of Chevron, one of the biggest American oil companies, were also convicted last year and sentenced to prison time. The company’s legal team has accused the Indonesian attorney general’s office of malicious prosecution, and the other two employees are appealing their convictions. Mr. Bachtiar, who remains free, will petition the Supreme Court for a judicial review, according to Chevron officials. The case centers on a so-called bioremediation program that began in 2006 at Chevron’s drilling facilities on the island of Sumatra. The company’s local unit, Chevron Pacific Indonesia, hired two Indonesian contractors, Green Planet and Sumigita, to do the work, which entailed removing or neutralizing contaminants in soil or water. Prosecutors said the companies were not qualified and did not have the proper permits, and that the cleanup was unnecessary because the area was not sufficiently contaminated. In May 2013, the anticorruption court in Jakarta convicted the directors of Green Planet and Sumigita of corruption. The Green Planet director was sentenced to five years in prison, and the Sumigita director, six years. During the Defense lawyers for Chevron Pacific Indonesia rejected the prosecution’s claims against its employees because Chevron had not received any reimbursement for the project. The defense also said that Chevron’s scientific analysis had confirmed that the soil was sufficiently contaminated to warrant bioremediation. “He was just doing his job — there has been no credible evidence presented” of corruption, said Albert Simanjuntak, the head of Chevron Pacific Indonesia, referring to Mr. Bachtiar. “There has been no credible evidence presented.” The Chevron case has drawn an unusual amount of attention in Indonesia because it involves an American company and because multiple Indonesian government agencies, as well as the country’s independent Supreme Audit Agency, have gone on record saying that no laws were broken. Indonesia is among the top 30 oil-producing nations in the world and is a former member of OPEC. In other recent corruption cases in Indonesia, lawyers have accused the attorney general’s office of questionable motives, including in the 2013 conviction of an executive of a state-run telecommunications company. “This is the corporate criminalization of corruption cases,” said Todung Mulya Lubis, a prominent Indonesian lawyer working for Chevron. “This is a bad precedent if Indonesia would like to attract foreign direct investment.”