Indonesia’s largest tech startup, GoTo, is facing a mammoth lawsuit by a smaller tech firm, who claims that it has exclusive rights to the brand name.
Lawyers for PT Terbit Financial Technology, a digital trading platform provider, announced to the press today that the company filed a lawsuit with the Jakarta Metro Police seeking IDR2 trillion (US$140.2 million) in damages from GoTo — the merged entity of superapp Gojek and e-commerce platform Tokopedia — on Oct. 13, 2021.
“The defendants are Tokopedia and Gojek, as well as their four CEOs,” PT Terbit Financial Technology legal representative Alfons Loemau said at the Jakarta Metro Police HQ today.
GoTo is led by GoTo Group CEO Andre Soelistyo, GoTo President Patrick Cao, Gojek CEO Kevin Aluwi, and Tokopedia CEO William Tanuwijaya. Gojek and Tokopedia merged and became GoTo in May 2021.
Alfons said his client has documents proving exclusive ownership of the GoTo brand (though theirs is stylized “GOTO”), which were issued by the Justice and Human Rights Ministry on March 10, 2020. The patent, he says, is valid until 2030.
GoTo VP of Public Affairs Astrid Kusumawardhani said the company has also officially registered the GoTo name with the authorities, but it will respect all legal process in the lawsuit nonetheless.
Historically, the Indonesian legal system has shown a tendency to side with whoever first registers a name or a brand, regardless of the stature of the firms involved in the disputes.
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