Letter: Local businessman recalls negotiating with Russians
To the editor,
– Around 1996 we developed a relationship with the Ukraine and Moldova governments and produced their official security certificates. We produced their certificates for several years and then received notification from the Russian government that they would also like to license our technologies including having us represent their security efforts to help stop the fraud in their 17 security printing plants.
They sent four delegates to negotiate the terms of the agreement, and even though we felt they understood us, we hired an interpreter from Cal Poly to help us in the translation. When we got to the part of the license that spelled out the 50% sharing of funds received from enforcing infringement litigation, they laughed hysterically. We had to pause for a few minutes because they couldn’t stop laughing; when we asked the interpreter to ask them what was so funny, they said to ask us if we would like to split 50% of a dead body.
While they all were very nice people, this is how they roll. To solidify our transaction they gave us two bottles of what they said was very good Russian Vodka. The attached picture speaks volumes.
President Vladimir Putin should have studied his own Russian history better and learned from the battle of Stalingrad that it is not how big the dog is in the fight but how much fight is in the dog.
In His Peace,
George Phillips
CEO of Pro Document Solutions, Paso Robles
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