Thursday, August 30, 2012

In some countries paying the officials are the only option

We have learned that a Danish businessman named Kent Kristensen is suffering in Romania because he failed to pay the right people when he tried to expand his business activities to this country.

He is now serving 7 years in prison if he survives the ordeal. All because he failed to pay officials while he had business activities down there and when he returned to Denmark they conducted a secret trial where he hadn’t the opportunity to hire a lawyer to defend himself.

Back in Denmark he married and got a daughter. The mother who was from another country had personal issues and fled Denmark with the child. The mother was arrested in Spain. When he flew down to get the child back he was arrested by the Spanish police and it was only then he learned of the trial in Romania.

The daughter ended up in a Spanish Asylum for children. The mother ended in a Spanish jail and he was extradited to Romania where they now are trying to get money out of him in exchange of him getting his medication and proper food.

The Danish authorities are trying to get the authorities down there to transfer him to Denmark but the authorities in Romania are not interested in letting their own citizens serve out their sentence where they belong – in Romania. In Denmark every 10th prisoner is a foreigner thanks to efficient ethnic profiling by the Danish police. If Romania and Denmark exchanged prisoners they will suffer economically due to the criminal nature of the tourists from Romania visiting Denmark.

So he is stuck and maybe he will only be able to return in a coffin.

We must warn Danish businessmen from conducting any kind of business with Romania. Their type of justice doesn’t allow failure or loss. In Denmark we are adjusted to the fact that risks taken in business transactions are not punishable. A number of Danish banks have filed for bankruptcy and the management is seldom held accountable because it is in the nature of conducting business to accept the risk of loss.

The business culture is simply too different and in Romania there are too many officials to pay off before business activities can take place.

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