I want a job writing the funnies for the BBC.
It's great to be paid to write stuff like this:
Ferrero accused in hazelnut fraud
The case at the court is indeed against Ferrero, the company behind Ferrero Rocher chocolates as well as Nutella spread and Tic-tacs.
But there is no challenge to the quality of the confectionery.
Seven years after the event, a fraud case involving two major banks, Ferrero, and the world's biggest supplier of hazelnuts, is finally nearing its conclusion.
Switched nuts
By February 2002, Bank of Tokyo Mitsubishi and Belgium's KBC Bank had lent 22.8m euros ($29.6m; £20.3m) to the Turkish hazelnut supplier Baskan Gida.
The banks thought that the money would be used to buy hazelnuts from growers and would then be repaid by companies such as Ferrero paying for them.
Instead of the money for the hazelnuts going to Baskan Gida it would go directly to the banks.
But by the time Ferrero came to buy the nuts, they were bought not from Baskan Gida, but from another company called Aksu Gida.
The banks allege that all of the assets, including the hazelnuts, had been transferred to Aksu Gida and another company called Baskan Yuksel.
This left Baskan Gida as "a worthless shell", the court heard, although it is hard to tell if the lawyers involved have spotted the pun.
... the counsel for Ferrero reached a very different conclusion.
"The picture the banks seek to paint is of a Ferrero, which paid vast sums of money to assist a fraud by Baskan Gida, in return for a hazelnut mountain for which it had no use and five years of litigation for which it had no wish." ...
Lengthy case
In a nutshell, it is a complicated case by any standards.
--
I have images of squirrels, like the ones from Charlie & the Chocolate Factory, typing away at the desks of BBC, sniggering away and dreaming of sitting atop a mountain of nuts. heh.
Ferrero accused in hazelnut fraud
The case at the court is indeed against Ferrero, the company behind Ferrero Rocher chocolates as well as Nutella spread and Tic-tacs.
But there is no challenge to the quality of the confectionery.
Seven years after the event, a fraud case involving two major banks, Ferrero, and the world's biggest supplier of hazelnuts, is finally nearing its conclusion.
Switched nuts
By February 2002, Bank of Tokyo Mitsubishi and Belgium's KBC Bank had lent 22.8m euros ($29.6m; £20.3m) to the Turkish hazelnut supplier Baskan Gida.
The banks thought that the money would be used to buy hazelnuts from growers and would then be repaid by companies such as Ferrero paying for them.
Instead of the money for the hazelnuts going to Baskan Gida it would go directly to the banks.
But by the time Ferrero came to buy the nuts, they were bought not from Baskan Gida, but from another company called Aksu Gida.
The banks allege that all of the assets, including the hazelnuts, had been transferred to Aksu Gida and another company called Baskan Yuksel.
This left Baskan Gida as "a worthless shell", the court heard, although it is hard to tell if the lawyers involved have spotted the pun.
... the counsel for Ferrero reached a very different conclusion.
"The picture the banks seek to paint is of a Ferrero, which paid vast sums of money to assist a fraud by Baskan Gida, in return for a hazelnut mountain for which it had no use and five years of litigation for which it had no wish." ...
Lengthy case
In a nutshell, it is a complicated case by any standards.
--
I have images of squirrels, like the ones from Charlie & the Chocolate Factory, typing away at the desks of BBC, sniggering away and dreaming of sitting atop a mountain of nuts. heh.