Page 41 - bne IntelliNews monthly magazine December 2024

bne December 2024 Southeast Europe I 41
with Mammadov and was “merely a licensor” that gave rights to use his famous name to a company headed by Ziya Mammadov’s son, Anar.
A month after Trump was elected president in 2016, Garten announced that The Trump Organization had cut its ties with the hotel project.
Whatever the true extent of The
Trump Organization’s involvement
with the hotel investment – The New Yorker exhaustively explained how it amounted to rather more than just
a licensing arrangement and how
The Trump Organization could be vulnerable to US prosecution under
the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) if it was found that there was insufficient due diligence performed on the project partners – the Mammadov family’s financial entanglement with
an Iranian family tied to the IRGC, the military force that plays a huge role
as a stakeholder in Iran’s construction industry, was problematic.
Garten argued that the FCPA did not apply to The Trump Organization’s role in the Baku project as it had no equity ownership stake, but Jessica Tillipman, an assistant dean at George Washington
University Law School and FCPA specialist, was cited as responding: “No, that’s just wrong. You can’t go into business deals in Azerbaijan assuming that you are immune from the FCPA. Nor can you escape liability by looking the other way. The entire Baku deal is a giant red flag – the direct involvement of foreign government officials and their relatives in Azerbaijan with ties to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. Corruption warning signs are rarely more obvious.”
The Baku deal appears to have been
the second time that The Trump Organization had become involved
in a business transaction that was vulnerable to US efforts to sanction Iran. In 1998, when Trump purchased the General Motors Building, in Manhattan, an Iranian tenant, Bank Melli, came with it.
The following year, the Treasury Department listed Bank Melli as “owned or controlled” by the government of Iran, meaning it was covered by US sanctions. It later even described Bank Melli as a primary financial institution via which Iran was routing money to finance terrorism and develop weapons of mass destruction. The Trump
If Trump had gone ahead with the hotel and residential tower deal in Baku, he might have found himself sharing the same profit stream as Iran's Revolutionary Guard, designated "terrorist" by Washington (Credit: Matti Blume, cc-by-sa 4.0).
Organization, however, stuck with Bank Melli as a tenant for four more years before ending the lease.
Compiled and written by bne IntelliNews correspondents Will Conroy in Prague, Daniel Rad in Belfast, Akin Nazli and Tatyana Kekic in Belgrade, Clare Nuttall in Glasgow and Valentina Dimitrievska in Skopje.
Moldova’s pro-EU President Maia Sandu wins second term
Iulian Ernst in Bucharest
The pro-EU President of Moldova Maia Sandu won a second term on November 3, defeating moderate pro-Russian rival Alexandr Stoianoglo by a significant margin of nearly 10 percent- age points in the heated second round of the presidential election.
Sandu’s win is good news for the coun- try’s European integration, but it is only the first step towards the stabilisation of the democratic process in Moldova. Next year, Moldova will elect a new parlia- ment, and Sandu’s Party of Action and
Solidarity (PAS) will have the tough task of preserving its majority or – a more realistic scenario – building a broader coalition.
In Moldova, Stoianoglo received nearly 52% of the votes, but 82% of the Moldo- vans living abroad backed Sandu, accord- ing to the preliminary results announced by the Central Electoral Commission after the counting of votes from 98.7%
of polling stations. In total, over 300,000 votes came from abroad out of the total 1.65mn votes cast.
Change of course
Sandu owes a lot to the pro-EU elector- ate, which supported her particularly in the second round, despite the disap- pointing performance of her executive over the past three years.
“Moldova, today you are victorious. Together, we’ve shown the strength of our unity, democracy, and commitment to a dignified future,” Sandu wrote on X, announcing her election victory.
“Thank you, dear Moldovans, at home
www.bne.eu