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Mining company Pukuafu Indah, which own a substantial stake in gold and copper miner Newmont Nusa Tenggara, says it is planning to press charges and file a lawsuit against NNT management over a dispute about share sales.

Pukuafu, which claims to own a controlling stake in NNT, says NNT management failed to comply with its order to cancel a planned initial public offering of shares Pukuafu says it owns.

“NNT has not responded to our legal demands regarding share ownership of the company,” Pukuafu lawyer Wisye Koesoemaningrat said.

Last week, NNT’s president director, Martiono, told Bloomberg the majority of NNT shareholders approved of the management’s proposal to sell shares in an IPO in the first quarter of next year.

Pukuafu claims to have bought a 20 percent stake in NNT in 1986, and Wisye told the Jakarta Globe on Sunday that the company bought an additional 31 percent of NNT from the United States-based Newmont Mining in four stages from 2006 to 2009.

“Pukuafu has the authority to cancel any shareholders’ meeting, because we are the rightful owner of a majority of the company’s shares — 51 percent,” Wisye said.

The meeting, however, took place as scheduled —without Pukuafu representatives in attendance — and resulted in the decision to go ahead with the IPO.

NNT spokesman Kasan Mulyono told the Globe that 82.2 percent of NNT’s shareholders agreed to the decision at the meeting, and that the size of the IPO would be determined later.

Ownerships stakes in NNT are fiercely disputed, and the company rejects the claim that it is 51 percent owned by Pukuafu. It says the purchase of the 31 percent stake never happened, and that Pukuafu only bought a 17.8 percent stake in 1986.

Kasan said ownership of NNT was as follows: Newmont and Japan’s Sumitomo own a combined 56 percent; 2.2 percent is owned by Indonesia Masbaga Investama; 24 percent by Multi Daerah Bersaing (a consortium of local governments and Multicapital, a unit of Bumi Resources; and 17.8 percent by Pukuafu.

In accordance with a 1986 government regulation, foreign companies can own no more than 49 percent of the company by the end of this year, making the majority of the ownership local. In July, the government showed interest in acquiring the remaining 7 percent stake that Newmont is planning to divest in order to conform with the rule.

Pukuafu says it paid Newmont for the 31 percent stake purchased between 2006 and 2009, but that the shares were never transferred.

Wisye claims that Pukuafu Indah has the backing of a December 2009 ruling in the South Jakarta District Court that ordered NNT to annul purchases made by the MDB consortium and allow Pukuafu to acquire the 31 percent stake by Aug. 4 of this year.

That order, however, proved fruitless, as the shareholders’ meeting concluded that Pukuafu was not a majority shareholder, as it controlled only 17.8 percent of shares.

Wisye has also rejected the 2.2 percent ownership stake of IMI.

Furthermore, he suggested the planned IPO would violate the 1986 regulation, because it could not guarantee that a majority of NNT shares would be domestically owned.

When asked if the IPO would result in the violation of the 1986 regulation, NNT’s Kasan declined to comment.

NNT operates the lucrative Batu Hijau copper and gold mine in Sumbawa. According to company data released for the end of 2009, the mine has estimated deposits of 11.57 million ounces of gold, 40.97 million ounces of silver and 11.47 billion pounds of copper.

NNT said in a statement last month that its gold production rose 87 percent in the first half of the year from the same period last year, to 335,000 ounces, while copper production rose 42 percent to 278 million pounds.