Alam was in 2015 found guilty by the Meulaboh District Court in Aceh province of using fire to clear 10 square kilometers (3.9 square miles) of land in the Tripa peat swamp on the northwest coast of Sumatra. The company pursued a series of appeals all the way up to the Supreme Court, which upheld the initial ruling and ordered the company to pay an unprecedented 366 billion rupiah, about $26.5 million at the time, in fines and reparations.

Its final ruling came in April 2017, at which point the company should have exhausted all avenues of appeal. Later that same year, however, the same district court that had convicted the company approved its petition for legal protection.

PT Kallista Alam subsequently filed suit against the government, arguing that theSaharjo, an expert on forest fires from the Bogor Institute of Agriculture (IPB).

These errors center on the time when the fires occurred on the concession. PT Kallista Alam claimed it had stopped operating on the concession since November 2011, after being ordered to halt by the Aceh provincial government.

“Therefore, the fires in March, May and June 2012 that we were [convicted of] are not our responsibility because activities on the plantation had been stopped [by then],” the company testified as quoted in the district court’s ruling.

But Bambang, who inspected the burned area in May and June 2012, said this was not the case.

“In fact, they were still operating as usual” when he visited, Bambang told Mongabay. “I visited their office and met with their manager, Sujandran. Other activities