Russia and economic war by the west #3

https://www.rt.com/business/596098-starbucks-russia-rebranding/

Russian court to consider terminating Starbucks trademark rights
The new owners of the popular coffee chain in the country have rebranded the local franchise

The owners of the remains of the Starbucks chain in Russia have asked a court to terminate legal protection of the American company’s trademarks, a court document has revealed.

Entrepreneur Anton Pinsky, who purchased the US chain's Russian assets in partnership with rapper and businessman Timati (Timur Yunusov), filed a claim with the country's intellectual property rights court on April 12, according to a post on the information portal Digital Justice this week.

Starbucks, which had operated in Russia since 2007, pulled out of the country in 2022 due to Western sanctions linked to the Ukraine conflict.

Pinsky and Yunusov acquired the rental agreements for all 130 Starbucks coffee shops in Russia, as well as the employment contracts of its 2,000 workers. They successfully rebranded the Seattle-based company’s coffee shops in Russia as Stars Coffee.

The new owners also replaced the well-known mermaid logo with an image of a girl in a traditional Russian ‘kokoshnik’ headdress.

The current claim relates to seven trademarks, which include images and text elements registered at various times between 2003 and 2014. However, the expiry periods of exclusive rights to trademarks were extended and are valid, depending on the mark, up until 2033, the court filing said.

According to the court document, the plaintiff has asked the court to terminate the protection of trademarks relating to two classes of services including restaurants, cafes, cafeterias, snack bars, and coffee shops due to their non-use.

In 2022 and 2023, Pinsky applied to register new brand names – Stars Pinskiy Coffee and Stars Kanokov Coffee. Currently, the declared designation of both trademarks is being examined, according to official documents.

As far as I remember, Russian assets have been "frozen" for years but nobody dare to seize it.

https://www.rt.com/news/596161-lagarde-russian-assets-international-order/

ECB fires back at plans to seize Russian assets
The confiscation of Moscow’s frozen funds could undermine international order, the head of the European Central Bank warns

Moscow has repeatedly said that the seizure of its funds would amount to theft and would further undermine global trust in the Western financial system. Russia has also warned that if necessary, it might respond in kind to such a move by the US and its allies.

I hope they are stupid enough to confiscate Russian assets because for every dollar of Russian assets abroad they can seize there are likely 3 dollars worth of western assets in Russia that Russia can take in compensation. And those western assets are likely undervalued to reduce their tax responsibilities too.

By the time the court cases in the west have finished this is not going to get them the free money they were wishing for and of course confidence in the rest of the world regarding the safety of investments and deposits in the west with evapourate and a rush will start to withdraw material from western banks and organisations that is going to damage the west more than anything the Russians or Chinese could have inflicted on them on their own.

The paranoid west is destroying the west.

And really the Russians and Chinese don't want to destroy the west, but they do want a fair deal with international organisations that the west currently controls.

With food and metals getting their prices set in the west and the vulnerability to speculators shifting the prices so some can make money while those buying food suffer from inflated prices or a lack of income for producers is seems the world is moving from money making schemes to a system where producers and consumers can dictate the prices so they are more fair and stable.

Hole wrote:

 3 dollars worth of western assets

It is the relative amount and not absolute scale. Western investment in Russia has been small compared to China but Russian investment in
the west is not larger. This includes Deripaska and others. Most of the "investment" is offshoring of money. Now these clowns are getting
ass raped in their "safe" western havens.

It's the pharse: "for every dollar in Russian assets, the west has 3 dollars invested in Russia". So Garry is not missing any zeros

Hole wrote:I guess he meant 3 Trillion Bucks, not 3. 

He called proportion bro

They still talk about thousands of western companies still in Russia and of the 10% or so that have been forced to leave they have sold their local assets and businesses for a fraction of what they are worth with an agreement that in 5 or 10 years they can return and buy back cheaply.

The point is that none of them want to leave because they were and are making good money in Russia... and some of them are not making good money in their own country and their own markets so this business in Russia was likely not cheap or easy or quick to set up... it takes a lot of effort to set up a working profit generating business in another country, and their own politicians making them just walk away must be soul destroying for them because there is more money to be made... it is a growing market.

Of the 90% that are staying, they are not doing so to help Russia, they are mostly relying on the income to keep them in the black in tough times... amusing when the western media calls Russia red and claims its economy is in the red, yet the racist white west are staying for the black.

Took that too far... I know.

Anyway if the west steal Russian assets in the west... not just the 300 billion, but also property and assets of anyone with a Russian passport, then Russia will have an open hand to pick and choose... and the owners in the west can take their own governments to court to get a piece of the Russian money that was stolen for compensation... not to mention the enormous hit that would deal to trust in western investments and security of material and resources kept in western hands.

Well, they have done it.

This is the equivalent of lighting an economic blue touch paper. Any US company with assets in Russia must be rather worried tonight.

In the middle of May is the BRICS+ meeting. That will likely be the time that Russia responds and puts the real boot into the US$

The Sirius Report
@thesiriusreport
This is even worse than sanctioning Russia's central bank and freezing Russian assets. Washington is on a suicide mission:

US House of Representatives has approved confiscation of frozen Russian assets in the US and giving them to Ukraine.
9:51 PM · Apr 20, 2024
·
21.5K
Views

GarryB wrote:
Anyway if the west steal Russian assets in the west... not just the 300 billion, but also property and assets of anyone with a Russian passport, then Russia will have an open hand to pick and choose... and the owners in the west can take their own governments to court to get a piece of the Russian money that was stolen for compensation... not to mention the enormous hit that would deal to trust in western investments and security of material and resources kept in western hands.

usually those have also Israeli + Swiss or Cypriot ones. Well those money were already lost for Russia let West take it.

JohninMK wrote:Well, they have done it.


@thesiriusreport
This is even worse than sanctioning Russia's central bank and freezing Russian assets. Washington is on a suicide mission:

US House of Representatives has approved confiscation of frozen Russian assets in the US and giving them to Ukraine.
9:51 PM · Apr 20, 2024
·
21.5K
Views[/i]

How funny, Adolf Hitler Born: April 20, 1889, Braunau am Inn, Austria

US House of Representatives has approved confiscation of frozen Russian assets in the US and giving them to Ukraine.

It doesn't mean a lot really because they only had about 10-20 billion in the US, it is the rest of the G7 that has like 280 billion in Russian assets... but the US has led so the dumb fucks in the west will follow them off the cliff.

The US has to get the west to act fast because when the brown stuff hits the bladed cooling system they will suffer and if the rest of the west hesitate the US might be left on its own, which would be a shame. It is always better that the entire enemy force gets to the middle of the minefield before that is where they realise they are...

usually those have also Israeli + Swiss or Cypriot ones. Well those money were already lost for Russia let West take it.

It has been fantastic for the Russian economy because the rich have stopped investing their enormous wealth in the west and have started investing in Russia.

The west are so stupid.

How funny, Adolf Hitler Born: April 20, 1889, Braunau am Inn, Austria

Funny how history repeats... now America is breaking Europe the way Germany did in WWII.

What else did they expect? "No problem"?

Might also add Belarus produces 20 per cent of the world's potash fertiliser. And is Russia is a fraction more, making Belarus and Russia hold around 40-42% of worlds potash. Russia is second biggest producer of fertiliser in the world.

Russian fertiliser is the new gas’ for Europe, top producer warns
Imports of urea into the EU doubled in the wake of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine

Europe is “sleep walking” into becoming dependent on Russian fertiliser, just as it did with gas, says one of the largest producers of crop nutrients.

Nitrogen fertilisers, which are important to plant growth, are made using natural gas and Russia is exporting more of it to Europe, replacing some of the gas banned by the EU, said Svein Tore Holsether, chief executive of Yara International, one of the world’s largest producers of nitrogen-based mineral fertilisers.

The EU imported twice as much urea, a common fertiliser, from Russia in the year to June 2023 compared with a year earlier, according to Eurostat. Russian imports for the current season, the year to this June, are lower but still historically high and account for a third of total urea imports into the bloc.

The price of crop nutrients soared in the wake of Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, as sanctions imposed on Russia limited availability of natural gas, a main input for nitrogen fertilisers such as ammonia and urea.


Russia is one of the world’s largest producers and exporters of nitrogen-containing fertilisers. This is also the case for potash and phosphate, which are mined and cannot replace the nitrogen-based fertilisers.

Russian fertiliser export revenue surged 70 per cent in 2022 on the back of higher prices

https://www.ft.com/content/90d977e6-ea05-4e49-a725-09234eecd147

d_taddei2 wrote:
Russia is one of the world’s largest producers and exporters of nitrogen-containing fertilisers. This is also the case for potash and phosphate, which are mined and cannot replace the nitrogen-based fertilisers.

Russian fertiliser export revenue surged 70 per cent in 2022 on the back of higher prices

Good post.

Yet another case of stupidly forcing Russia to move up the value chain, instead of exporting cheap NG for processing in the EU they buy more expensive fertiliser. Economics of the madhouse.

But then it suits the US and the ban fertiliser movement.

We all know what is happening ere