ABNR Counsellors at Law

Bilal, a partner of the firm, is a seasoned commercial litigator and member of the firm’s Disputes & ADR Dept., whose diverse practice focuses on competition and antitrust, restructuring & insolvency, commercial litigation, arbitration and alternative dispute resolution, and anti-corruption and compliance. He is hailed as a “Rising Star” for Competition and Antitrust by The Legal 500 Asia Pacific (2023 ed.), and as an “Associate to Watch” for Competition/Antitrust by Chambers Asia Pacific (2023 ed.). In addition, he is listed as one of Indonesia’s “top 50 up-and-coming future legal leaders” by Asia Business Law Journal (ABLJ), and as an “Indonesia Rising Star 2022” by Asian Legal Business (ALB).

In competition and antitrust, he successfully defended Temasek Holdings, a Singapore state-owned enterprise and investment fund, over an allegation of cross-ownership in the telecommunications sector. He also advised in a ground-breaking class action against a number of telecommunications companies involving KPPU (Indonesia Competition Commission) decisions.

He is expanding and developing the antitrust and competition practice group, which includes the conducting of antitrust litigation and agency investigations, the provision of dawn-raid service training, and the conducting of fair competition internal reviews and internal investigations relating to antitrust issues for a range of multinational clients with operations in Indonesia.

Bilal has also handled numerous merger notifications and cases before the KPPU, where he regularly assists international and regional law firms with the Indonesian competition law aspects of global and foreign-to-foreign deals before the KPPU. He also undertakes competition compliance due diligence on the commercial arrangements and operations of clients, and advises on distribution and joint venture agreements, and commercial arrangements.

In restructuring & insolvency, he has been involved in almost all the major events in Indonesia in recent years.

He was a key member of the ABNR team that represented some 30 of the world’s biggest aircraft and engine lessors and manufacturers, and other aviation-related vendors, in the USD 9.8-billion court-sanctioned debt restructuring of Indonesian flag carrier PT Garuda Indonesia (Persero) Tbk (approved June 2022). This was the largest court-sanctioned restructuring in Indonesia’s history in terms of asset value and number of creditors, and one of the largest ever in the Southeast Asia region.

Bilal is a key member of an ABNR team that represents the majority of aircraft lessors in the court-sanctioned debt restructuring of Indonesian flag carrier PT Sriwijaya Air.

He is also acting for an international bank on the ongoing USD 2-billion debt restructuring of textile giant Duniatex group, and was a member of the ABNR team that represented the trustee in the debt restructuring of Sritex group.

In 2016, he was a key member of the team that acted for China Development Bank in the USD 4.5-billion Bumi Resources global debt restructuring, which was the largest and one of the most complex restructuring deals ever in Southeast Asia at the time.

In commercial disputes, Bilal advises and represent clients in contractual disputes, and has acted for clients in numerous arbitration proceedings. He is currently assisting an Italy-based shipping company to have two international arbitration awards (approx. USD 22.2 million) enforced by the Central Jakarta District Court against a local shipbuilder.

In anti-corruption and compliance matters, he regularly assists clients with anti-corruption and compliance audits and training.

Bilal is a graduate of Padjadjaran University, Bandung, majoring in international law, and holds an LL.M degree in International Business Law from the University of Melbourne under the Australia Awards Scholarship. He is currently a vice chairman of the Indonesian Competition Lawyers Association (ICLA) a non-profit organization that brings together competition law practitioners concerned with the development and upholding of competition law.