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Pharmaceutical firm claims innocence in dispute
PT Combiphar, producer of OBH Combi cough syrup, says it was never involved in any way in a Letter of Undertaking (LoU) between PT Parazelsus Indonesia, a company specializing in distributing pharmaceuticals, and PT Consumer Choice, a holding company with a stake in Parazelsus
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T Combiphar, producer of OBH Combi cough syrup, says it was never involved in any way in a Letter of Undertaking (LoU) between PT Parazelsus Indonesia, a company specializing in distributing pharmaceuticals, and PT Consumer Choice, a holding company with a stake in Parazelsus.
The LoU was used as grounds for a lawsuit launched by Parazelsus on April 21, 2011, against Combiphar, Consumer Choice and Hamadi Widjaja, Consumer Choice’s president director and one of Combiphar’s commissioners. Parazelsus accused the three parties of breaching contract.
“But we never signed the document. We didn’t even know the letter existed until we received the lawsuit,” Combiphar’s lawyer Djen Tjia Siang said on Wednesday.
Tjia added that the LoU was written by Hamadi on behalf of Consumer Choice. In the letter, according to Tjia, Consumer Choice promised to make a US$50 million contribution to Parazelsus, including by appointing Parazelsus as distributor of Combiphar’s products.
“The letter was signed only by Hamadi, as Consumer Choice’s president director, on June 30, 2008. He never revealed that he had signed such a letter in any of Combiphar’s meetings,” Tjia told The Jakarta Post.
Consumer Choice itself retracted the LoU on July 5, 2010.
Tjia said that Combiphar was dragged into the legal problem because the letter stated Combiphar’s name. Parazelsus demanded more than $10.3 million in compensation from the three.
On March 29, a panel of judges at the Central Jakarta State Administrative Court, led by Sunardi, rejected Parazelsus’ claim and acquitted the defendants.
According to Mutiara Rengganis, Combiphar’s legal representative in the trial, the judge ruled that the signed document did not constitute a formal contract because it was signed by only one party, which was Consumer Choice. Therefore, the defendants did not commit a breach of contract.
“The LoU was considered one-sided. There wasn’t even proof of agreement from Parazelsus, so the letter was not legally binding,” Mutiara added.
Parazelsus filed an appeal on April 6.
