Governments have a lot to answer for regardless whether they support ‘left’ or ‘right’ policies, and history is replete with examples of how often we are told that their new ‘plan’ will benefit us all only to end up causing far more trouble than the existing plan would have done had it been left in place.
Here we will look at just one example. In this case we are talking about a foreign policy that at first glance promised the opening of golden opportunities for large multi-national corporations and the beginning of an era of greater peace, when Obama decided it was time to effectively relax sanctions against Iran by refusing to sign the 10-year renewal order so as not to impede the nuclear deal that he and his administration was developing.
Setting aside any political headaches and international tensions that have developed as a consequence of Iran’s new-found freedom granted by the relaxation of sanctions for the purposes of this article, and regardless of the fact we are often ‘led’ to believe governments know far more of the inner workings of what is really going on that drive such policies than we do, large multi-nationals rushed to Iran from all over the world signing mega-deals within weeks.
CEOs went home and were received with triumph in hearts and multi-million dollar contracts in hand, and I dare say that more than a few companies share-prices leapt for joy as well. All appeared well… Except that all was not at all well, but that kind of news is never published in the mainstream media.
Iran has always been an extremely complex market to work in, and one can bet their last dollar that none of the complex official (and unofficial) government-linked agencies’ control that invariably affect such deals were envisaged during those signings. How many of those Iranian companies were associated with ‘all the wrong’ people or had a long history of being directly or indirectly involved in issues that no Western investor/shareholder would countenance a connection with?
And how many of those companies are now spending a pretty penny attempting to either keep that news out of the public domain or to quietly extradite themselves from some of those deals that have decidedly lost their shine?
When working in any complex market, it is essential to thoroughly understand it and the players who operate within it. This is only possible with the assistance of corporate intelligence agencies that have deep connections and experience in these markets. Despite upsetting the occasional partner who desperately wanted a deal to go through because they could only see the $ signs, the KCS Group has helped many a corporation save themselves from the extremely costly experience.