TTELA reports that Maud has been criticized by the Committee on the Constitution (KU). The committee states that Maud kept important information from other branches of the government concerning Antonov, thus causing unnecessary delays for Saab. Saab wasted several months waiting for government and EIB approval of Antonov’s potential investment in Saab.
As for Antonov, the plot thickens as the Lithuanian chief of the national bank Vitas Vasiliauskas turns out to be the former head of council for the Baltic company LAWIN. On LAWIN’s website, GM Europe is listed as one of their clients. Mr Vasiliauskas has been quite active in building a case against Antonov.
In related news, Pravda recently reported that Snoras was little more than a shell before Antonov got involved and has since been developed into a fully fledged bank with modern Internet solutions and many ATM cash points. I realize Antonov has already been publicly convicted by the Swedish media, but the situation is quite reverse in Russia it seems.
Finally, there is a rumor floating around in various forums that claims Lithuania’s government adjusted no less than seven different laws before they were able to bring charges against Antonov’s bank.
At the same page there is a link stating that M&M is going to take over SAAB. The article is updated 1036 today. Can SU elaborate on that?
Quelle surprise!
Its an ugly world. And it will be even uglier with no Saabs around.
Fingers Xed.
Dear SU, shall we a bit less naive when it comes to Russian press? I’m not saying that Antonov’s public conviction in Sweden is the way to go, but the fact that nationalist media like Pravda are standing up for Antonov is hardly surprising. Many Russian media like nothing better than highlighting how Russian businessmen have shown former Soviet states like Lithuania how to run a bank. Most of all, they frown upon the fact that a (as they see it) run-away Russian province like Lithuania dares to start a criminal case against a successful Russian businessman. These kind of media stories are likely to be at least as biased as Swedish media stories (probably even more), just in the other direction.
I never said it was not biased. My intent was to show that there is another side to every story. The Swedish media has been brutal and extremely one-sided — and I have yet to see them conduct any form of research into these questions whatsoever.
The piece in Pravda makes a few assertions that should be easy to disprove. If they are correct about Snoras being not much more than an empty shell (pre-Antonov), then the Lithuanian fear of this bank being driven to bankruptcy rings hollow.
Heck, at one point it looked as if the Lithuanians accused Antonov of misconduct because he instructed the bank to lend money to Saab. That strikes me as a bit odd, given my understanding of a bank’s purpose (to help businesses secure needed capital for expansion).
Alright. I’m just not sure whether I would use a media outlet that describes Madeleine Albright as “the butcher of Serbia” as an example in this case. Also, I find it somewhat suspicious that these allegations towards Lithuanian officials only show up in Russian media and “various forums”. Hardly conclusive evidence, if you ask me.
Anyway, I’m sure you catch my drift. In the end, we still don’t know what is true about Antonov’s antics. We’ll just have to wait and see how his extradition case plays out.
Innocent until proven guilty. The burden of proof rests not with the accused.
As for Serbia, have you ever been? I’ve visited that place twice and have friends living there.
Fortunately he is not charged in Singapore.
Over here, you are deemed guilty until u can prove yourself innocent, haha:)
I have not.
(Sorry, pushed wrong Reply-button: can this be place under Rune’s latest comment.
…because if you look into the whole Serbia-Kosovo situation, and compare it with Georgia-North Ossetia… And then look at Carl Bildt’s views on those two issues…
All I can say is “riiiight”.
I do not have the facit in hand, but I do know inconsistency when I see it. (The Russians certainly had a point when they said the situation in Georgia/Ossetia is not much different from the situation in Serbia/Kosovo)
So no, I do not particulary mind that Pravda calls Ms Albright “the butcher of Serbia”. I don’t necessarily fully agree with that assesment, but I certainly will not use that as a gauge for how bad/good a paper Pravda is. You can easily run the same exercise on almost any Swedish newspaper with depressing results.
I feel we’re digressing a bit from the original Saab-related matters, so I’ll leave this discussion now, but I can’t help myself when you start comparing Ossetia with Kosovo and claim that there is not much difference. That’s Russian propaganda, which you are sadly repeating here. So before I sign off, here is some reading for you: http://www.economist.com/node/12009678
Have you been to Georgia? 🙂
My wife is from Georgia. I’ve also met foreigners who lived in Georgia right after they broke out of the Soviet union.
Sorry, but South Ossetia does not belong to Georgia (at least if you believe Kosovo does not belong to Serbia). The atrocitieis conducted by the Georgians in that territory is well-known and certainly not something you’d associate with any democracy. And it had been going on since at least the mid-90s.
Abkhazia OTOH I know nothing about. That territory I suspect belongs to Georgia proper.
“Saab wasted several months” – Saab wasted several KEY months and one could argue that made all the difference.
Just a thought.
This comes as no surprise to most of us here at SU. Do we know what, if any punishment there will be?
Somewhere at the back of my mind there always seemed to be some conspiracy against Saab being owned by VM & AV.
People were defiantly conspiring here…..which caused the nails in Saab’s coffin.
GM involved yet again…
Here in the states, from my perspective, it’s only a matter of time before it is 100% proven that GM used SAAB as a tool to dump crap into and hide things they didnt want show just to increased heir chance at government bailouts.
This screams conspiracy and if SAAB survives all of this it is a miracle.