PROOF TRANSCRIP THROUGH WHATSAPP CONVERSATIONS CAN BE USED IN ARBITRATION HELD EXAMINATION AND RECOGNIZED BY THE AGO’S MAHKAMAH
PT JAB, a futures brokerage company, is the Respondent to arbitration at the Commodity Futures Trading Arbitration Board (BAKTI) for committing unlawful acts that harmed ACW as a customer by failing to supervise a salesperson of the Respondent. According to ACW, the salesperson had made transactions using ACW’s account username and password without prior notice to ACW, resulting in losses.
BAKTI ruled that PT JAB had committed an unlawful act and ordered PT JAB to pay compensation to ACW. Not accepting this, PT JAB requested the cancellation of BAKTI’s decision to the District Court. PT JAB argued that ACW had committed deception in the examination of the arbitration dispute at BAKTI by submitting evidence of printouts / printouts of conversations on Whatsapp between ACW and PT JAB’s marketing personnel, as if they were legally valid evidence. According to PT JAB, the evidence was submitted in a way that violated the provisions of the ITE Law, namely by not presenting an expert or electronic system organiser who explained that the evidence could be accounted for. The District Court rejected PT JAB’s cancellation request and PT JAB filed an appeal.
The Supreme Court at the cassation level ruled that the judex facti did not misapply the law because it did not find that there was a reason that there had been fraud in the arbitration award, nor was there a violation of the examination procedure in the arbitration hearing process in casu. On the contrary, there was evidence of a conversation via WhatsApp Messenger between ACW and the Claimant’s employee, where during the arbitration hearing ACW showed his mobile phone containing the WhatsApp Messenger conversation and ACW had invited the Panel of Case Judges at BAKTI and the Claimant to check it. The Supreme Court considered that the transcript evidence through the WhatsApp Messenger conversation was valid.
- Supreme Court Decision Number 439 B/Pdt.Sus-Arbt/2016, dated 26 July 2016.
Source: https://putusan3.mahkamahagung.go.id/direktori/putusan/7b79e6528afc495cd892f0fd9f09bf56.html.
Salam Pancasila,
Fredrik J. Pinakunary