Talk:Minol

What does this mean?

"Minol is also the trading name of Minol Messtechnik W. Lehmann GmbH & Co. KG, a utility billing and metering company group operating on six continents." So is this a DIFFERENT company than VEB Kombinat Minol? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.112.49.214 (talk) 22:02, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

'VEB' means 'Volkseigener Betrieb', i.e. a government owned company. This no longer exists after the German government fullfilled the privatisation requirements of the international trade conventions. The 'Messtechnik' (metering technology) is simply a joint venture or daughter which extends their business activities, like a pharmaceutical company would establish a cosmetics company. Metering technology is big business in Berlin where something like 85 % of people live in rented apartments. The landlords charge for water, heating, and hot water but can no longer do it proportionally. Every water tap our outlet has a meter, every radiator for central heating also a meter, so you can see how lucrative metering technology is.

The 1300 filling stations mentioned do not look right to me. Thuringia alone had 400 at the time of the fall of The Wall (mentioned in one court case), so that would proportinally come up to between 2,000 and 2,500. The often read claim that elf Aquitaine bought Minol in 1991/1992 could never be verified, because the sale price has not come to light. It is not likely that there was indeed a sale because the rightful owners of the Minol gas station allottments did not receive a proportinal payment (own experience). 144.136.192.17 (talk) 01:14, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

sources

no sources !

neither for the page, nor to back up any of the (revisionist) claims in the gentlemanly conversation from 2012 above!

What about "Elfgate", the 1992 sale of Leuna and Minol financing then Chancellor Helmut Kohl´s slush fund, causing Germany´s biggest postwar political scandal when it was uncovered 2000? It has been widely reported that ELF bribed the German government of "Don Kohleone" in exchange.

In 1991, the Minol gasoline station network was considered profitable and a "lucrative big-ticket item" and still for sale, when 6,500 former East German businesses were sold off like 10 a day.TYLER MARSHALLPrivatization of Former East German Firms Proceeding at Frantic Pace : Germany: The Kohl government is selling off thousands of former East German companies at the rate of 10 a day. LA Times November 17, 1991

It is well-established that Elf functioned as a conduit for government bribes during the last years of the administration of the late Pres. Francois Mitterand.THE TROUBLING ELF-KOHL CONNECTION oil and gas journal, 28 January 2000, PennWell Corporation Kohl admitted that he used illegal bank accounts to move money to his party branches. ELF Managers attested to the fact that money was exchangedHelmut Uwer Stadler: Verdachtsmomente bleiben FAZ, 10.07.2001 In August 2000, Le Floch-Prigents, ELF director in 1992, swore that Kohl assured him of governemnt subsidies end of 1992 before the deal went through, and that Elf used 80 million DM "for lobbying" in the Leuna/Minol deal with then president Francois Mitterand. Former Elf manage André Tarallo said, the money was used to pay demands by German agencies. Kohl: Frei erfundene Behauptungen. FAZ, 16.05.2001}} which Kohl of course denied. Philippe Jaffre, chairman of Elf from 1993 until October 2000, repeated that Elf had paid $39 million in 1992 for "studies and lobbying" in connection with the German oil refinery deal, to a Liechtenstein-registered company called Nobleplac, owned by Andre Guelfi, aka Dede the Sardine. Guelfi has said on German TV, that he did pass the money on to German politicians.CHARLES P. WALLACE Greasing the Wheels. CHARLES P. WALLACE TIME, 7 FebruaRY, 2000

And Nobleplac did transfer $36 million to an account in Liechtenstein, controlled by Dieter Holzer. Dieter Holzer, ex BND spy, then lobbyist for Elf, was middleman in the sale, laundered the money moving it on to bank accounts in Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg and Lebanon.German businessman probed in Leuna refinery affair. Agence France Presse. October 31st, 2000 He was arrested in Austria in August 2001, after running and hiding for a whole year.German Investigated in French Oil Scandal NYT, REUTERS. 28 December 2001

In 2002 after years of probing into the maze of high-level corruption in France, the whereabouts of the 39 million euro ($34 million) so-called "commission payments" were still unclear. There was to date no definite evidence they were bribery payments.An Oily Scandal. Deutsche Welle, 05.02.2002]

The only reason why there was no judgement against Kohl is, because Kohl did destroy the crucial documents. Tony Paterson Kohl 'destroyed computer files' after his defeat. 25 Jun 2000, Telegraph Media Group

In 2004, Der Spiegel revealed how in the late 1980s, Holzer had set up the Lichtenstein company called Frager Anstalt, which served the Franch-German commission payments.Sam Sole, Lionel Faull The villa, the villains and Rusty. 21 Oct 2011 Mail & Guardian Holzer was sentenced in absence in Paris in 2005, appealed in Germanyhttps://web.archive.org/web/20050219200953/http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,811008,00.html

In July 2008, the then 66 year-old special advisor to former Bavarian Prime Minister Franz-Josef Strauss, . was accused of false testimony and obstruction of punishment in the course of a previous trial against Max Strauss, son of Strauss senior relating to a payment of 100,000 euro to support the then fugitive State Secretary in the Federal Defence Ministry.Photo 2008 Holzer lost his appeal in 2009, had to go to prison for 15 months and to pay back some millions. He died in 2016. (see German WP for that last part). --Wuerzele (talk) 10:07, 23 June 2017 (UTC)