Indonesia's Financial Services Authority, known as OJK, imposed fines totaling 2.1 trillion rupiah, or about $117 million, over stock manipulation and misleading IPO allocations linked to three companies, according to Bloomberg.
The fines tied to coal miner Dian Swastatika Sentosa, a unit of Sinar Mas Group under tycoon Franky Widjaja, came to $83.2 million, or 1.5 trillion rupiah, according to Bloomberg. Fines tied to Barito Renewables Energy and Petrindo Jaya Kreasi, two companies connected to billionaire Prajogo Pangestu, amounted to 500 billion rupiah for the former and 100 billion rupiah for the latter.
Reports differed on who received the penalties. Bloomberg reported that the penalties fell on the ultimate beneficial owners of the three companies, along with the underwriters, traders and IPO allocation handlers tied to them, and that the regulator did not name the sanctioned entities. According to Jakarta Globe, the fines were administrative penalties on the three listed companies.
In the Dian Swastatika case, OJK found evidence that private individuals and institutions had traded the stock via multiple brokerages over the period from 2023 through 2026, according to Jakarta Globe. The regulator said the trades were planned and coordinated and boosted the company's stock price. OJK called in 12 directors of securities companies, along with 15 individuals and 11 overseas legal entities, and it suspended licenses held by the parties involved.
In the Barito Renewables and Petrindo Jaya Kreasi cases, the regulator found that part of each offering was reserved in advance for groups affiliated with controlling shareholders, according to Jakarta Globe. Parties connected to those shareholders masked their true identities so they could land sizable allocations. That left ownership bunched in a few hands and reduced how much stock could be traded.
Hasan Fawzi, OJK’s executive head of capital market, derivatives and carbon exchange supervision, said the regulator had examined stocks on its High Shareholding Concentration, or HSC, list. “Of the 61 stocks included on the HSC list, 31 have undergone examinations and have shown indications of potential capital market criminal violations,” Hasan told a news conference in Jakarta on Friday, according to Jakarta Globe.
The announcement followed a warning from index provider MSCI Inc. that Indonesia had fallen short of its requirements for emerging-market status and might be cut to standalone status, according to Bloomberg. Such a move would risk removing the country from MSCI's global indexes. Indonesia's stock market ended the session 12% lower. That was the steepest single-day fall the market had seen since 1998, according to Bloomberg.
OJK said the cases stemmed from earlier investigations rather than MSCI's announcement, according to Bloomberg. All three companies were also part of a group of six dropped from the MSCI Indonesia Index in May. The companies did not respond to requests for comment at the time of Bloomberg's report.