07.23.17
STRASBOURG: Representative of Lufthansa Accused of Corruption
[DE] STRASBOURG: Vertreter der Lufthansa wegen Korruption angeklagt
Topić and Matijević
Summary: According to some international sources, it was on account of the corrupt and criminal tendencies with which he has been endowed by nature and which he used to assist international corporations in protecting dubious patents in the Republic of Croatia that Željko Topić was rewarded with a position at the EPO in Munich, although his skills and mindset indicate that he does not belong there. This is also indicated by the fact that this complex-ridden individual recently changed his place of residence in Zagreb.
On 20 July 2017 an action was submitted to the European Court in Strasbourg against the representative of the international airline, or more precisely against its legal representative in the Republic of Croatia, the lawyer Andrej Matijević. The complaint was dispatched by post, from a small town on the island of Korcula from where Ruža Tomašić, a Croatian MEP in Brussels, comes.
The complaint relates to a series of corrupt actions allegedly committed by the lawyer Andrej Matijević, together with the responsible official of the State Intellectual Property Office (DZIV), the former Director Željko Topić who is now a Vice-President of the EPO in Munich. Because of the lack of legal certainty and due to the ineffectiveness and corruption of the Croatian legal system, especially on the part of the Public Prosecutor (DORH) and the Office for the Suppression of Organized Crime and Corruption (USKOK), after more than 9 years of obstruction of the investigation the plaintiff in the proceedings has now decided to seek legal protection on an international level at the European Court in Strasbourg.
The most bizarre fact in the whole investigation procedure which has been going on for many years in Croatia is that apparently neither the representative of Lufthansa nor the former Director of the DZIV, Željko Topić, were ever summoned to an interview with the police or with the Croatian Public Prosecutor. Perhaps not without reason Croatia has been reported as one of the most corrupt states, according to the latest research from Transparency International.
Sources from the European Court of Human Rights Strasbourg indicate that at least four proceedings relating to corruption and discrimination are pending against the EPO Vice-President Željko Topić. The extent of the high level corruption alleged against the Vice-President of EPO is indicated by the claim that he was able to bribe a well-known Croatian investigative journalist. When this journalist was exposed, he terminated his membership in HND (the Croatian Journalists’ Association) of his own motion because he was afraid of Croatian and international journalists’ associations. For the moment, one small detail remains unknown, that is whether or not the accused journalist received the “black” money personally from Željko Topić or whether he received it from the “caisse noire” of the EPO. The sum is estimated to be of the order of several thousand Euros.
After the legal representative of Lufthansa in Croatia did not succeed in lawfully purchasing the internationally protected Air Plus brand, which had been used in an illegal manner for many years by the Lufthansa subsidiary AirPlus Servicekarten GmbH, a ruthless operation of unlawful expropriation of the trademark proprietor from Zagreb (in plain language: theft) was started by the allegedly corrupt Željko Topić who, as Director of the DZIV, responded to the accused lawyer Matijević and by administrative means attempted to illegally delete the protected trademark from the official database the of Croatian DZIV.
Although this pair of criminal “Siamese twins” were exposed, they were never subjected to any sanctions. In fact, according to some international sources, it was on account of the corrupt and criminal tendencies with which he is endowed by nature and which he used to assist international corporations to protect dubious patents in the Republic of Croatia that Željko Topić was rewarded with a position at the EPO in Munich, although his skills and mindset indicate that he does not belong there.
This is also supported by the fact that this complex-ridden individual recently changed his place of residence in Zagreb. He has moved from the slums of the Croatian metropolis to No. 23 Zamenhofova Street and has now become a member of the recently formed and phony “nouveau riche” class.
The true identity of Mr. Željko Topić is perhaps revealed in the two texts below, which were published in the Croatian media [1, 2]. The reports are titled “Sjedi li u EPO krivi čovjek?” [Translation: Is the "wrong man" sitting at the EPO] and “Hrvatski patent za autorska prava” [Translation: The Croatian patent on copyright].
In any case the company AirPlus Servicekarten GmbH (www.airplus.com), headquartered in Neu-Isenburg, Germany, had an impressive turnover of EUR 14 billion in 2016, while at the same time serving a customer base of 49000 exclusively business class passengers, that is to say, passengers with very high purchasing power.
Therefore, it would hardly be surprising if Lufthansa had decided to take such corrupt step assisted by a dubious lawyer and corrupt banana republic officials such as Željko Topić, and attempted to illegally acquire the protected trade mark instead of purchasing it via civilised business practices according to which it should pay at least 2% of the annual turnover of its subsidiary which had been making unlawful use of a foreign trade mark for almost 20 years. In the end it is a question of large sums of money. According to unofficial information of the German lawyer representing the plaintiff in the proceedings, Mr. Constantin Mascher, it involves a claim for damages of at least 30 million Euros. Furthermore, in order to make things even more interesting, reports have appeared in the Croatia media according to which Lufthansa is rumoured to be a hidden owner of Croatia Airlines. █
Constantin Mascher
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