Merrill Lynch faces civil suit in Jakarta after Spore court rules in its favour

Financial Times, 21 May 2009, John Aglionby
A dispute between Merrill Lynch and an Indonesian private banking client will be heard by a Jakarta court, a judge ruled yesterday, raising the stakes in a battle in which Singaporean courts have already ruled twice in the bank's favour.
Indonesian police have declared Lily Widjaja, the head of Merrill's Jakarta office, and Rahul Malhotra, managing director of its Singapore office, suspects in a parallel but related criminal case. They are accused of embezzlement and defamation in relation to the civil case between the bank and the client.
The civil suit is one of several involving Indonesians who claim banks treated them unfairly or failed fully to inform them about products on which they suffered heavy losses when stock markets and the rupiah crashed last year.
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