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April 24, 2008 - Image 42

Resource type:
Text
Publication:
The Detroit Jewish News, 2008-04-24

Disclaimer: Computer generated plain text may have errors. Read more about this.

World

ANALYSIS

Coca-Cola And Confiscation

On Passover, an Egyptian Jew battles Coca-Cola
in the U.S. for a modern-day injustice.

Washington

R

efael Bigio in Montreal remem-
bers the moment that the regime
of Egyptian President Gamal
Abdel Nasser seized his family's property.
He was driving to the factory with his
father that traumatic August day in 1962.
Police cordons surrounded the buildings
at 14 Aswan Street in the Cairo suburb of
Heliopolis. As Bigio and his father ner-
vously stepped up the stairs, a policeman
barked that the government had national-
ized the business.
Undated picture of Bigio family factory prior to its seizure in 1962
"Give me the keys;'
he demanded.
The Bigios were
Company or ENBC. Unbeknownst to the
ing Heliopolis.
expelled from Egypt Bigios, the land itself was sold off to the
In the early nineties, Egypt embarked
with just a few dol-
Egyptian national insurance company,
upon a sweeping privatization program,
lars in their pockets, Misr.
selling off nationalized properties, includ-
fleeing to Canada.
After Anwar Sadat made peace with
ing those seized from innocent Jews in
But the Bigios never Israel, the Bigios went back to Cairo to
prior decades.
forgot the life they
recover their property. The Egyptian gov-
To the Bigios' astonishment, Atlanta-
knew in Egypt
ernment in 1979 invalidated the earlier
based Coca-Cola, their former business
Edwin Black
— or their assets.
confiscation declaring the land rightfully
tenant and customer, purchased Coke
Special to the
The
Bigio
assem-
belonged
to the Bigios. The government
bottler ENBC for a reported $142 million.
Jewish News
blage of warehouses even returned the money Misr Insurance
Amid much fanfare, ENBC was renamed
and manufacturing buildings sprawled
had originally paid for the illegally seized
The Coca-Cola Bottling Company of Egypt
across 10,000 square meters in the midst
Bigio property.
(TCCBCE).
of bustling Heliopolis traces to the 1930s
But Misr refused to comply, unwilling
when Bigio's grandfather first bought the
to give up the constantly appreciating land Beneath The Veneer
land and eventually produced tin bottle
now purportedly valued at many millions
Unmentioned in the gee-whiz surround-
caps for soda. In 1942, at the height of
based on its central location in fast-grow-
ing the acquisition was that the company
World War II, a Coca-Cola licensed bottler
became the family's tenant, bottling the
world-famous cola.
In the fifties, the Coca-Cola licensed
bottler in Egypt expanded greatly, the
plant was moved to a nearby location,
and in 1959 Coca-Cola in Atlanta signed a
major license agreement with the Bigios to
produce the bottle caps.
In the early sixties, using the Nazi
Aryanization model that seized Jewish
businesses and then either used them
for state purposes or sold them to others,
the Nasser regime ordered middle-class
Egyptian Jews pauperized and expelled
from Egypt. The Bigios' land was seized,
and their various cola bottling and manu-
facturing supply companies were nation-
alized and merged into a single, larger
enterprise called the El Nasr Bottling
Coca-Cola Egypt promotional poster

Coca-Cola Egypt promotional poster

A42

April 24 4 2008

Coca-Cola purchased from the Egyptian
government and renamed TCCBCE includ-
ed the illegally seized and never returned
businesses of the Bigio family.
Coca-Cola was thrilled with its major
multimillion-dollar business accomplish-
ment. In a 1994 declaration to share-
holders, the company stated, "Over the
last decade, bottling investments have
represented a significant portion of the
Company's capital investments ... For
example, the joint venture known as the
Coca-Cola Bottling Companies of Egypt
was formed in the second quarter of 1994
following the privatization of the Egyptian
bottler, which was previously government-
owned!'
TCCBCE now derives an estimated
$100-$500 million in annual revenue
selling an estimated 150 million cases of
soda and related products each year. The
operation involves nine bottling plants
and approximately 29 sales and distribu-
tion centers throughout Egypt. Employing
approximately 7000-8000 Egyptians,
TCCBCE has become one of that country's
leading employers.
Bigio, seeing a gigantic multimillion-
dollar business achievement that incor-
porated his businesses and involved his
land, contacted Coca-Cola in Atlanta early
on. Coca-Cola, the record reflects, would
not acknowledge his claims. So Bigio took
Coca-Cola to court under a variety of legal
theories including trespass, unjust enrich-
ment and liability under the Alien Tort
Claims Act.
Bigio retained Washington D.C., super-
lawyer Nathan Lewin. In reviewing the
Bigio litigation, the Second Circuit Court
of Appeals repeatedly cited as pivotal
Lewin's argument that "Coca-Cola engaged
in wrongdoing by 'acquiring the assets of
ENBC, knowing that plaintiffs had been
deprived of their rights to the property
solely because of their religious faith."

The Core Issue
Hence, the key question is whether Coca-
Cola in Atlanta did or did not know prior
to the acquisition of ENBC that it included
the looted assets of the Bigio Family. In
an e-mailed statement to this reporter,

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