RIM In Hot Seat With Corruption Allegation from Indonesia's Supreme Court

Indonesia's supreme court recently make public that they have received a corruption allegation towards BlackBerry manufacturer, RIM together with 5 local telco carrier companies.

According to supreme court's spokesperson, this case has been submitted two months ago to West Java High Court but the court haven't taken any actions to follow up the case. "We're currently investigating deeper and gathering as much as information as possible regarding the case, and also still to decide whether the case will be taken over by Supreme Court or not.

The alleged lawsuit, is basically accusing 5 local telco carrier companies to partner with RIM who was then a non-incorporated foreign company operating in Indonesia. RIM is accused of not paying tax up to IDR 10 trillion or around $1.3 billion from its operation since 2007.

There's no official statement about the 5 telco carriers impacted with this lawsuit, almost all telco carriers in Indonesia have BlackBerry service packages.

Yolanda Nainggolan, a spokeswoman for RIM Indonesia said to us via email, "As a committed corporate citizen in Indonesia and all 175 countries where BlackBerry exists, RIM respects and obey local law and regulations. RIM is constantly maintaining its relationship with Indonesian government and all entities related to our operations in Indonesia".

This isn't the first time RIM have problem in Indonesia, said to be RIM's biggest market for BlackBerry. For the past few years, Indonesia's Ministry of Communication & Informatics has been putting RIM under pressure for exactly the same thing, tax evasion. Indonesian authorities has been pushing to invest more in Indonesia in data centres and law compliance in exchange of RIM making a lot of money from Indonesians.

Looks like this thing with RIM and Indonesian authorities is not going to end anytime soon.