Tuesday, June 28, 2005

More miseries for Lattelekom's half-mother

As if the mess with Turkcell (the Turkish Cukrova family/?/ backed out of a seemingly done deal) and Russia's Megafon were not enough, TeliaSonera CEO Anders Igel and another executive have been called in for questioning in a bribery investigation. The alleged bribe - a musical performance followed by a buffet dinner to which some 200 Swedish executives (including a top police chief) were invited. The top cop, it it seems, considered the whole affair a bit over the top and filed a complaint with the prosecutor. The prosecutor isn't sure a crime was committed because precedents are unclear on where to draw the line between client entertainment and bribery (the planned event was apparently cancelled), so he is making a test case of TeliaSonera's planned balagāns ( for my Latvian speaking readers).
Perhaps another Post-It note for Nils Melngailis, Lattelekom CEO, to put in his file on what the parents (which he cannot chose or affect) are up to. I'm waiting, too, for Dagens industri's Mikke's take on this (the state shareholding in TeliaSonera was a factor in starting the bribery investigation -- taxpayer money for music shall be spent at the Stockholm Opera, thank you...).
Thanx to Dagens Nyheter, from whence this sad tale is lifted. Can poor Anders get a break? Maybe float the rest of Lattelekom on the Riga Stock Exchange while we are flogging the somewhat dubious Ventspils Nafta (a bit difficult to see where their money will come from).

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

teliasonera is a real mafiozi group - corrupted gang with extreamly strong backup from local governments. A real winner for the most hated company title in Baltics..