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he Bakrie Group, the shareholder of London-listed Bumi Plc., has said that documents used as the basis of an investigation into the company’s Indonesian units PT Bumi Resources and PT Berau Coal Energy, were illegally obtained.

“We can confirm that the documents used as the basis of the Macfarlanes’ preliminary report were, in some cases, stolen and, in others, illegally hacked. Some of these documents appear then to have been ‘doctored’ to give a purposely misleading impression of a number of business transactions at Bumi Resources,” Bakrie Group senior vice president Christopher Fong said on Monday.

Macfarlanes LLP is a UK-based law firm, which was appointed to investigate alleged financial irregularities in Bumi Resources and Berau. The investigation commenced last September after receiving information from a whistle-blower.

“Contrary to earlier reports, however, there was no ‘whistle-blower’ from within Bumi Resources. The documents supplied to the independent directors appear to have originated from a fabricated source and packaged to give the impression that they were real, which was not the case. These documents were first presented by [Bumi Plc. founder and shareholder Nathaniel] Nat Rothschild to the Bumi Plc. board,” Fong said.

Borneo Bumi Energi & Metal Pte. Ltd, one of two special-purpose vehicles acting to hold Bakrie Group and PT Borneo Lumbung Energy & Metal’s joint 47.6 percent stake in Bumi Plc., asked a UK-based information technology (IT) security company to conduct an investigation into the possible hacking of executives’ email accounts.

Previously, IT security company G3 Context had disclosed a report of its investigation of the email account belonging to Bumi Plc. chairman Samin Tan, who is also the founder of Borneo Lumbung.

“This revealed that during the month of July 2012, the chairman’s email account was specifically targeted in a sophisticated and persistent attack to compromise his computer and retrieve information. The registration details of websites used in the attack indicate that the attack was planned on March 1, 2012,” the security company said in the report.

The cyber security firm also verified that an email address attempting to act as a whistle-blower using the Bumi Resources email service provider was bogus.

Fong said that the group intended to submit a report to the UK police and other regulatory authorities, while Indonesian police continued to investigate the hacking claims. The Bakrie Group suggested that Rothschild was behind the hacking.

“Based on this shocking new information, we invite Mr. Rothschild to explain his understanding and knowledge of these activities. It is notable that Rothschild appeared aware that confidential email accounts belonging to others could be accessed when he suggested in October that he had access to Bumi Plc. chairman Samin Tan’s confidential emails,” Fong said.

In an email sent to The Jakarta Post, Rod Christie-Miller, chief executive of UK-based law firm Schillings and speaking on behalf of Rothschild, said the Bakrie Group’s claims were “self-evidently serious allegations”. Suggesting that Rothschild conducted illegal and unethical practices was “seriously defamatory”, he went on.

The cyber attack claims have fanned the ongoing dispute between the Bakries and Rothschild, who struck a deal in 2010 to develop Bumi Plc., which holds 29.2 percent of Bumi Resources and 84.7 percent of Berau.

The Bakrie Group, comprising Jakarta-listed PT Bakrie & Brothers and Long Haul Holdings Limited, announced that it wanted to end its venture in the UK by proposing a share swap of its ownership in Bumi Plc with a stake in Bumi Resources and purchase the remaining stake as well as take over all stakes in Berau.

Following the move, Rothschild, who holds a 10 percent stake in Bumi Plc., submitted a counterproposal but declined to publicize the details.