- Jul 23, 2018
- 4,193
With the court announced to be in session the Swedish delegation would consciously move from formal titles to courtroom appropriate addresses. Einar Åkesson would swear her oath to the court before standing behind the complainant desks, her black leather chair pushed just behind the back of her knees, as she stands her hands naturally rest infront of her with the back of her hand clasped gently in her other palm.
Einer briefly blinks, widening her eyes in surprise as the French disrespect the court by interrupting opening statements... something which, out of courtesy, is never done in a courtroom.
Einar smiles to the Justices as a sign of respect before returning to her seat just behind her. She takes a very quick sip of water before opening her notebook in preparation to make notes from the French statement due to follow.
Einer briefly blinks, widening her eyes in surprise as the French disrespect the court by interrupting opening statements... something which, out of courtesy, is never done in a courtroom.
"Good afternoon. Your Honour, Justices... my name is Einar Åkesson and I stand before you as the European Regional Practice Manager for Strömberg International Legal Consultants, representing our client First Choice International, a world reknown umbrella organisation housing a number defence-orientated subsidiary organisations proactively pursuing the international trade market in the defence and intelligence arena.
Today we stand before your coat pursuing a French organisation known to us as French Military Sales Incorporated, FMSI, however operating under a number of alias' such as French Naval Sales Incorporated, French Maritime Incorporated and France Defense Sales Incorporated to name just a few; we believe these alias' are actually subsidiary organisations under the French Military Sales umbrella however this remains unrelated to the case. Your Honour to give you a small amount of context regarding the defence in this case, FMSI is a state-owned organisation that the President of the Republic of France actively takes an interest in and in this case has following proceedings from the very beginning - I think it's important to note for the benefit of the court, the tape and the defence that First Choice International and Strömberg International Legal Consultants are private organisations and are in no way state-funded in any way other than a consumer-business relationship.
We're pursuing French Military Sales Incorporated for a number of charges namely various violations of consumer trade, abuse/perversion of judicial process, false/manipulative advertisement, defamation, witness intimidation and international law violations. This is quite a sheet for a business in it's infancy and frankly accusations of this level are unheard of... the International Court of Justice has never heard a civil dispute of this nature and frankly, Your Honour, this case is complex.
Early in 1995 French Military Sales Incorporated began trading in a variety of military-grade and civil goods namely fixed wing aircraft, helicopters, naval vessels and civil logistical vehicles under the aforementioned alias', their business model was not unusual to any other business in the global market offering a standardised price per unit per product from which organisations and governments alike can put forward their request for production and in return for the appropriate payment, FMSI facilitate the manufacture of these goods presumably with production licences at their disposal. Almost like a WalMart for military-grade equipment, you pay what's on the label and checkout. As I said FMSI trade internationally and throughout their website it's made very clear that their business model is heavily reliant on a global sales market with their prices in the US Dollar currency and nothing to suggest any exclusions are in play. It was soon brought to our attention however that their organisation were responsible for facilitating the sale of a number of military/civilian maritime vessels and military-grade aircraft manufactured by subsidiary organisations of which First Choice International is the majority and only share holder and as such we, Strömberg International Legal Consultants, were brought in to begin legal proceedings to prevent further loss of revenue and reputation damage inevitably being caused to our client First Choice International. These products included the Eurocopter AS, 332 Super Puma, Aerospatiale Gazelle, Aerospatiale SA321 Super Frelon, Al Madinah-Class Guided Missile Frigate, Cassard-Class Frigate, PR-72P-Class Corvette and Fourde-Class Landing Platform Dock - seven products in total.
It's here I will mention that the products were falsely advertised contrary to consumer law - a manipulative sales tactic, you will see this trend throughout this case...
A Cease and Desist was served on French Military Sales Incorporated in which it was clearly explained that a single opportunity to discontinue illegal sale of goods - from which they immediate acknowledged their wilful infringement and ceased further production of the aforementioned products.
The significant loss of product to our client, First Choice International, prompted follow-up correspondence from our offices advising the possibility of a civil settlement to the value of $2,000,000,000.00 flat - this amount was calculated from publicly available data, which we are able to exhibit to the court upon request, and calculations for the lost profit, administrative and legal costs and irreversible reputational damage to First Choice International. Unsurprisingly FMSI initially objected to settling at this price, denying sales anywhere near this figure - this was the first overt lie told by an organisation clearly unaware of the records both they and their clients have on public record. This was very quickly followed up by the organisation, which I will remind you is a state-owned organisation stating that the Republic of France was not part of the Global Assembly, is not subject to international law and subsequently not within the remit of the International Court of Justice - the second lie told to intentionally deceive our legal proceedings and preventing further judicial process. However they counter-offer our initial settlement with a payment of $500,000,000.00, a quarter of the amount initially pursued, followed by their refusal to acknowledge First Choice International as the majority shareholder in both Airbus Group and DCNS despite the Global Stock Market clearly displaying this on public records.
At this point, I would like to make it clear to the court that at this stage that we are not pursuing the states placing orders with FMSI on the basis that their pursuit for the fairest and cheapest prices in the market was a natural pull to this French-run organisation - it is likely that these consumers were unaware of any infringement at the time of purchase.
In an attempt to prevent a court case we continued to pursue the settlement fee and the correspondence from the defence became more and more aggravated at points claiming that Strömberg had "committed illegal acts in reckless pursuit of this ill-conceived lawsuit" which I am sure they will enlighten us to in their follow-up opening statement and going on to say that our case would be "discarded faster than an IKEA instruction manual" - now I don't know about you Your Honour but if the French are able to build an IKEA wardrobe without that manual then frankly that is impressive... never-the-less, you're able to see that their correspondence had reached an unusually immature and unprofessional grade.
At this point we served our intention to pursue this via the court system, to which they replied, acknowledging the initiation of legal process.
FMSI, following this notice, backtrack their initial correspondence and agree to the settlement figure initially requested and payment was asked to be made directly to Strömberg International Legal Consultants for distribution onto our client. We wanted to create a clear and defined barrier between our client and the defence especially with the back-and-forth we had thusfar however unsurprisingly this was disputed with FMSI contacting our client directly, despite our instruction. I would like to outline for the court that at this stage FMSI had been served notice of intended court hearing, yet they went on to contact our client, the victim in this case... it is without doubt that their contact with First Choice International was blatantly to intimidate our client into rescinding any legal action which is unforgivably illegal and diminished their respect for the judicial system even further. Thankfully their attempt was unsuccessful however despite our client referring FMSI onto Strömberg International Legal Consultants on numerous occasions, their correspondence continued again and again - at this stage it was the President of the Republic of France himself contacting our client. There is nobody higher in the French political system. This was not just some corporate lawyer overstepping their position, this is the highest-level government official intimidating our client.
Now the agreement to settle is interesting but I am sure the court thinks we're near the end of this absurd tale? No. The agreement to settle was purely a way to delay legal proceedings even further as without any discussion, any contractual agreement, not even a mention in correspondence between French Military Sales Incorporated and our firm a payment of $200,000,000.00 was sent under the suggestion that this was one of 11 payments to cover the cost. Yes, a payment plan nobody had agreed to. To this date FMSI had paid no more than this initial payment making it even more glaringly obvious that from start to finish their organisation was determined to delay legal proceedings, manipulate international and domestic law and deceive everyone involved.
With the view of this case being unable to proceed via domestic courts and with the Republic of France denying their membership of the Global Assembly, this dispute was raised to the Swedish Ambassador to the Global Assembly Marc Kvet in the view that this case had dangerously escalated into the French government denying justice... something that clearly sits outside of a business-to-business civil matter; because of this a Global Assembly Resolution was raised. To answer the defence in their interruption, the Global Assembly Resolution was not 'thrown out' as a result of no case, it was to be referred onwards to the International Court of Justice where it would've been in the first place had the Republic of France not denied their membership.
Jurisdiction for this case falls word-for-word within Article 7e of the Statue of the Court. Judicial proceedings in both Swedish and French law have remained unheard as a result of the clear violations of international law. It is within our rights to have all charges heard by a judge by means of fair trial however despite our best attempts FMSI will not comply with domestic court systems bringing the requirement to the International Court of Justice to hear not only the domestic civil claims but also the international law violations that bring us to this courtroom in the first place. Your Honour should you not hear the domestic charges, they will remain unheard, the victim in this case will remain unheard and the defence will walk free knowing dragging us all to the international courts saves them any possibility of being found guilty.
Your Honour, Justices, be under no illusion that responsibility is going to be accepted by the defence. You will be manipulated throughout this court case as they attempt to play the victim card as they have with us, I encourage you to see through this. French Military Sales Incorporated is an intelligent state-run organisation with the President of the Republic of France steering the ship. Using international law as a chess piece in their undeniably dangerous game.
Deceit. Manipulation. Abuse.
Thank you."
Einar smiles to the Justices as a sign of respect before returning to her seat just behind her. She takes a very quick sip of water before opening her notebook in preparation to make notes from the French statement due to follow.
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