The Jakarta High Court has upheld the three-year prison sentence handed to former BRI Ventures president director Nicko Widjaja over the venture capital firm’s investment in agritech startup TaniHub.
The appellate panel chief judge, Elyta Ras Ginting, read the ruling at the Jakarta High Court on Thursday (Sept. 3).
The ruling means Widjaja will serve the three-year sentence the Jakarta Corruption Court handed down. The appellate panel also ordered that he remain in detention and that the time he has already spent in custody be counted toward his sentence.
The ruling comes shortly after the court also upheld former BRI Ventures vice president of investment William Gozali’s two-year prison sentence in a separate appeal. The court issued its decision on Gozali’s appeal on Monday.
Gozali and Widjaja were among six people convicted in the case involving investments by BRI Ventures and MDI Ventures in TaniHub.
Both executives were convicted by the Jakarta Corruption Court in June. Gozali was sentenced to two years in prison and fined 250 million rupiah, while Widjaja received a three-year sentence and a 350 million rupiah fine. Both sentences have now been upheld on appeal.
The court also ruled that Widjaja’s assets or income could be seized and auctioned if he fails to pay the fine. If the fine cannot be recovered through the seizure and sale of his assets, he must serve an additional 110 days in prison.
The latest rulings leave both former BRI Ventures executives with the same sentences handed down at the first trial. The cases can still go to the Supreme Court through a cassation appeal, although Gozali is still considering whether to pursue that route.
The TaniHub case centres on a total of $25 million invested by BRI Ventures and MDI Ventures into the startup. BRI Ventures invested $5 million, while MDI Ventures invested $20 million.
At the June trial, the Jakarta Corruption Court said the total loss to the state amounted to $25 million, based on an audit by Indonesia’s Financial and Development Supervisory Agency (BPKP). The court cited the decline in the value of BRI Ventures’ investment, TaniHub’s operating losses and other financial problems at the group.
The case has put the investment decisions of state-linked venture capital firms under greater scrutiny, particularly over how business losses at startups are treated under Indonesia’s corruption laws.
The defence teams for Widjaja and Gozali have maintained that the investment decisions were business decisions made through the companies’ procedures and that neither executive received personal financial benefits from the deals.
The June ruling also saw former MDI Ventures president director Donald Surjana Wihardja sentenced to five years in prison and former MDI investment vice president Aldi Adrian Hartanto sentenced to two years. TaniHub executives Ivan Arie Sustiawan and Edison Tobing were sentenced to nine and seven years, respectively.
Meanwhile, the appeals of Wihardja and Hartanto are still ongoing in separate courts.
