Run out of money? Run out of Dubai
The owner of gift company BlueBanana.com has fled from Dubai after going bankrupt. He said sorry.
June 25, 2009 2:41 by Aarti Nagraj
Simon Ford, the owner of gift company BlueBanana.com, has fled the country after the financial crisis drove the business to bankruptcy.
In a “letter to the Dubai public,” he apologized for fleeing and added that he would “repay every last dirham to everyone who is owed money from bluebanana.com.”
He said that he was forced to leave because he and his family began receiving death threats. “I am not running away from debt, I am purely protecting those dearest to me and getting out of a country which, due to the lack of structured bankruptcy laws and a banking system which has zero flexibility on loan repayments, drives people to make horrible decisions.”
Fleeing the country is not going to make the debts disappear. But is this the only way out for businessmen sucked dry by the crisis; to run away and then say sorry?
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2 Comments
If Simon is sincere about settling the debt within a stipulated time frame, it is an opportunity that he should be allowed to avail of. Having said that there should be a undertaking in place that would make him legally responsible to pay back the sum within a stipulated time frame. If not then UAE should have the right to extradite him to be tried in the UAE courts as acriminal within the framework of the strictist Shariah law. This would then be a global response to a global crisis, with no place to hide!
WTF @ RAY – The banks who loaned him in UAE did not have these Intl. extradition procedures in place…As you sow so shall ye reap – so if the banks were happily counting extra cash from all the dubious sources in the world, the uneasy debtor has a case in taking these steps… Be a little more considerate next time, u can be the next in line, as tey say ITS THE ECONOMY STUPID !!