Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: Hortlund on March 12, 2002, 01:42:40 AM
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In 20 minutes I will have my first trial as judge.
Nothing big, just 4 different cases of speeding. Nooo problem.
hehehe *laughs nervously and slurps down some more coffee*
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What? I thought you were a manager at McDonnalds too :confused: :D
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No, thats my secret identity. At nights I roam the streets disguised as a McDonalds employee, fighting crime :D
It went ok btw ...gonna celebrate with a cold one after work :)
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So where is this place in Sweden where we can ignore speed-limits?
:D
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Jag hoppas at du har lyckad karriär, Grattis !
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Lycka till
Och dommer du!,det var en overraskning,,,tyvaer er mit Keyboard inte I skandinav-mode ;)
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heh, thanks for the replies guys.
The free-speeding zone is in the western parts of "Gästrikland"-county (look it up ;)), but it is only valid for anohter year (you only serve 2 years as a "notarie" <--I have no clue how to translate that word, or that function into english terms...
and I have done 1 yr already).
If you can show up at this court and tell me the difference between a Fw 190a5 and a Fw 190a8, you can consider that to be just as good as one of those "get out of jail"-cards you sometimes got in Monopoly :D
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Staga & Dawvgrid, please remove boxing gloves before posting ;)
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Hortlund....
So...I didn't realize you were a glorified lawyer
:D
That is great man....good luck. I'm sure you will be nervous for the first few cases, but soon they will refer to you as "The Hanging Judge"....
You could even legally force people to fly the 190A8!
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Originally posted by Hortlund
If you can show up at this court and tell me the difference between a Fw 190a5 and a Fw 190a8, you can consider that to be just as good as one of those "get out of jail"-cards you sometimes got in Monopoly :D
Something to consider next time I find myself in a swedish courtroom. :D
Good luck Hortlund.
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Congrats Hortlund,
Would the fact that my last name ends in the same 4 letters as yours help me out? I promise to study the A5 - A8 luftwabble dictionary!
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How old are you, Steve?
I had the impression you were a young man (like me!), but if you are a judge, you might very well be a geezer... ;) Of course, who knows what the hell you all do up there in the snow.
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Originally posted by Kratzer
How old are you, Steve?
I had the impression you were a young man (like me!), but if you are a judge, you might very well be a geezer... ;) Of course, who knows what the hell you all do up there in the snow.
"Thirty days additional."
"But, judge, what the heck for?"
"Contempt of court. Next case."
"But, what do you mean, contempt of court? All I said was that you looked too young to be a judge. That's just the plain truth! You look like a peach-fuzz-faced kid straight out of junior bjorgschool. Lookit, you're even wearing sneakers under that robe! You ARE to young to be a judge!"
"Make that forty days. Bailiff, I said next case. Let's be quick about it, shall we?"
- Oldman
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Dooogie?
xBAT
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Doogie Hortlund... a nice ring to it.
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Unless I'm interpreting this wrong, he isn't a judge in the sense that you all are thinking. It sound like he is something along the lines of a "Justice of the Peace" like we have in the boondocks ofsome states. They are elected for a term and handle misdemeanor type crimes to avoid having to travel forever to get to a real court.
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Originally posted by Kratzer
How old are you, Steve?
I had the impression you were a young man (like me!), but if you are a judge, you might very well be a geezer... ;) Of course, who knows what the hell you all do up there in the snow.
I'm 28 (well, 27 actually, but my birthday is on the 21st of March)
How old are you? :)
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Originally posted by Oldman731
"Thirty days additional."
"But, judge, what the heck for?"
"Contempt of court. Next case."
"But, what do you mean, contempt of court? All I said was that you looked too young to be a judge. That's just the plain truth! You look like a peach-fuzz-faced kid straight out of junior bjorgschool. Lookit, you're even wearing sneakers under that robe! You ARE to young to be a judge!"
"Make that forty days. Bailiff, I said next case. Let's be quick about it, shall we?"
- Oldman
Alas...Im not allowed to sentence people to jail sentences (yet). For now I'll have to settle with fining them huge amounts of cash should they dare to question me
woaahAHAHAhahaah <-- evil laughter :)
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Originally posted by Raubvogel
Unless I'm interpreting this wrong, he isn't a judge in the sense that you all are thinking. It sound like he is something along the lines of a "Justice of the Peace" like we have in the boondocks ofsome states. They are elected for a term and handle misdemeanor type crimes to avoid having to travel forever to get to a real court.
Allow me to try to explain exactly what I do.
After lawschool (5 yrs) you recieve a masters of law-degree.
You can then either opt to work for a private firm, or work for the government.
I choose government (long term goal is to be a prosecuter (sp) and put bad guys in jail).
About 500 lawyers (or people with a masters of law degree rather) get accepted by teh various courts in Sweden each year. About 15 000 apply, so I was pretty lucky to get this spot.
Once accepted, you serve for 2 years. Here, the fun begins.
For the first 6 months you get to sit in on all "your" judge's proceedings. But all you get to do is take notes, and prepare all the cases (that means, go through all the paperwork in advance).
After those initial 6 months you are "promoted", now you are allowed to handle simple civil law cases, such as divorces, companies suing for bankruptcy etc etc. You still work with "your" judge, sit in on all his trials. Now you have more responsibility though and you get to write the verdicts (you would not believe how lazy most judges are).
After 1 year (here is where I am now) you are promoted again to something that has no (at least to my knowledge) counterpart in the anglo-american court systems, I'll call it junior-judge, or judge in training, for lack of a better word.
I function exactly as a judge, but only in cases where the defendant does not risk inprisonment. So Im qualified to handle speeding cases, but not drunk driving, Im qualified to handle some drug offences, but no drug dealers. etc etc. I also become a part of the court (that means, I get to sit in and decide on legal matters) in private-law or civil-law proceedings. In that aspect I am a fully qualified judge.
After an aditional 6 months, I get to decide in cases where the offendant does not risk a more severe punishment than 6 months in jail. So in about 6 months guys..Ill be able to lock people up
heheheh :)
Then, after two years, I will be able to either proceed down the judge-career, or (as I have planned) switch to the prosecuter-side.
Now, Im not sure this short essay on how the swedish legal system works has made it any clearer exactly what I work with.
But at least I tried. :)
And thanks for all the words of encouragement.
(and it was cool to be in total control of that courtroom this morning, bossing people around ;))
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Hortund..I have seen some pretty complicated civil cases.
I have also seen some very simple ones go horribly wrong.
Seems like they slam alot of responsibility on you guys early in your careers.
I guess that is good for the profession in the long run...you end up with some very experienced judges....but it could also end the careers of some guys, surely?
Gotta smile though....in the US the money is all in defending cases...in Sweden the cherished jobs are with the government prosecuting the bad guys. I suppose that all has to do with benefits though...'cause if you earn too much in Sweden the govt takes it all away anyway.
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Oh, we have people chasing money over here too. We are very far from the US though. Here the best lawyers earns SEK 4 000 per hour (about USD 400). Compare that to the prosecuters that make 2000 USD a MONTH when they start. A "normal" salary for a prosecuter is between 3400 -4500 USD a month, depending on how long they have worked.
And yeah, there is alot of pressure on ones shoulders from day one. There are no safety nets either. And if you screw up bad enough, its one strike and your out. No worries here though, I drink lots of coffee (good for stress ;)) and I play AH alot to vent all the frustrations of work :)
[edit] IMO the worst cases are the custody cases where the parents loose it and do everything to get custody over the kids.
That and the child molestors. I'm gonna spare you the details here, but the worst case I've been involved in was a rape case. The victim was 12 yrs old, the perp was her uncle. I actually threw up in a break during that trial.
I cannot understand the lawyers in those cases. I mean, I would rather shoot myself in both kneecaps than defend a guy like that.
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Originally posted by Hortlund
I'm 28 (well, 27 actually, but my birthday is on the 21st of March)
How old are you? :)
I'm 25.
28? I guess I was in the right ballpark afterall! I was picturing the judge from the simpsons ("I move this sketch be stricken from the record!")
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Okay....but I need a bit of clarification here man. The accountant in me is intrigued by this stuff.
You say a good lawyer earns $400/hr...but that is what the firm charges...not what the lawyer actually makes right? Out of that $400 the firm must pay all its overheads, including the salary of the lawyer.
Assume one of these good lawyers makes say $200,000 a year...what is the tax rate on this in Sweden? Probably like 75%...this means that lawyer takes home about $50,000 a year.
(I could be wrong about 75%, correct me if so)
The start-up prosecutor makes about $50,000...what is his/her tax rate? Significantly lower I would imagine. Let's assume 35%...this gives a take home pay of $32,500!
But...what are the government benefits for the prosecutor? From what I know about Sweden they are pretty sweeeeeeeeeeeet.
Seems like it all equals out in the end potentially, which explains 15,000 applicants for 500 positions.
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Originally posted by Curval
Okay....but I need a bit of clarification here man. The accountant in me is intrigued by this stuff.
You say a good lawyer earns $400/hr...but that is what the firm charges...not what the lawyer actually makes right? Out of that $400 the firm must pay all its overheads, including the salary of the lawyer.
Assume one of these good lawyers makes say $200,000 a year...what is the tax rate on this in Sweden? Probably like 75%...this means that lawyer takes home about $50,000 a year.
(I could be wrong about 75%, correct me if so)
The start-up prosecutor makes about $50,000...what is his/her tax rate? Significantly lower I would imagine. Let's assume 35%...this gives a take home pay of $32,500!
But...what are the government benefits for the prosecutor? From what I know about Sweden they are pretty sweeeeeeeeeeeet.
Seems like it all equals out in the end potentially, which explains 15,000 applicants for 500 positions.
Ok, lets see.
The good lawyer I was talking about. Generally he would have his own firm, chargning his clients $400/hour. The large firms on the other hand play by other rules. Those niched against the major corporations, such as Ericson, Volvo or ABB charge them unreal amounts of money. I have a couple of friends who work for the largest law firm in sweden. The firm has 50 co-owners (you know what I mean right?) Each makes roughly $50 000 a month. But as I said, that is due to their unreal client base. That firm has something like 1500 lawyers working for them.
Swedish tax rates.
You have two levels of income tax. First you pay 30-35% income tax (varies depending on where you live in the country). This is drawn from your total income per year. So in the $200 000/year example, you can subtract $60 000 right away.
Then you have another tax level that hits when you have an income above a certain level. In this level you pay 25% income tax. This second level kicks in at $25 000/year. That means that in our example $175 000 (200 000 - 25 000) would be taxed at 25 %, for a total of $43 750.
We now add the two income taxes. 60 000 + 43 750 leaves a total tax of $103 750. Subtract that from the original 200 000, and we find that out of a yearly income of $200 000, the individual gets to keep $96 250.
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Okay...well my assumptions were way off..
Essentially you are saying there is an effective rate of about 50% for high income earners.
That is about the same as Canada.
I thought tax rates were higher than that in Sweden.
:confused:
Maybe I'm thinking of Denmark...
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Originally posted by Hortlund
I'm 28 (well, 27 actually, but my birthday is on the 21st of March)
How old are you? :)
Wow, this is depressing lol. I'll be 30 by the time I even get to Law school in 2003. And Hortlund is a judge at 27. Even taking into consideration the differences between the American and Swedish Judicial systems this is depressing. Guess that's what I get for taking the long road lol. ;)
-Sikboy
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Originally posted by Sikboy
Wow, this is depressing lol. I'll be 30 by the time I even get to Law school in 2003. And Hortlund is a judge at 27. Even taking into consideration the differences between the American and Swedish Judicial systems this is depressing. Guess that's what I get for taking the long road lol. ;)
-Sikboy
Well, you'll probably make your first million before him though...
:D
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Curval, that'd be DK you're talking about.
taxes for a nromal income would be income tacxes at around 43-45%, and then on top of that 25% sales tax. On top of that ahre million of fees the previous governments have dreamed up to avoid having them as normal taxes, since the Eu wouldn't be too pleased about it )nor would the average Dane if he took the time to investigate just how much we pay in tax). One example: there's a 'fee' On cars. It's 180% of the cars value. Fee on water: 250% of the price.
And, as you move up in income, taxes get progressively higher. My father is a doc and works a lot overtime because of shortage of docs here. It's meaningless for him to work overtime for money, since he'll pay like 90% of what he earns in tax. And he cannot take it out as spare time, because there's too few docs to go around.
Fortunately, we got a new government that have implemented a tax *stop*, i.e no more taxes or fees. Financing whatever is needed will b e done by cutting public spending instead. Easy to see who I voted for :). The social democrats wanted to up the taxes, which already are the highest in the world, to finance more non essential pointless things.
Hortlund: congrats bud! There are some wrecks in Sweden you're not allowed to dive on. If I get taken diving one of 'um, I hope I get you as a judge :D.
I'll tell you everything about the difference between the A5 and A8 :D
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StSanta...I was just talking income tax, and did not consider sales tax, gas tax, etc, etc...complicates the issue, because Sweden would have similar "other" and buried taxes. But, your point is well made, because if the cash is paid to govt. in any way it isn't in your pocket.....bottom line.
Just spoke to a Danish friend of mine....
He confirmed an "effective" rate of income tax of 50% for someone making $200,000. But, this is because the taxes are graduated, as Hortund points out. However, the final rate applied to earning over a certain threashold, or "level", is 72% or 73%. He couldn't tell me the dollar amount of the threashold, but it is probably for income levels over $500,000 or something. If you make millions your effective rate would gradually approach 72% or 73%, logically.
Anyway...my friend also suggested that Hortund is actually not simply putting criminals away for the "good of society". :)
Prosecutors are highly respected in the Scandavian countries and as lawyers/judges start so early in life they actually wait until they hit 40-45 years old and THEN hit the private sector. When they do so they command respect....and BIG BUCKS.
;)
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Good Luck :)
Your system sounds far more sane than ours, where if a judge is appointed he/she can practically die on the bench unless removed by some of his or her best buddies, which doesn't happen all that often for any reason. Or, judges are politicians who have to run for office, with all of the obvious problems that suggests. Prosecutors also have a free reign, as far as I know, fully immune from malpractice issues. The fact that the often have political ambitions (both inside and outside the profession) makes it even harder to admit mistakes, even if something like reviewing DNA evidence based on some real concerns would save someone's life.
Charon
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Originally posted by Curval
Well, you'll probably make your first million before him though...
:D
Lol, thanks Curval, That will certainly help me sleep tonight :)
-Sikboy
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Originally posted by StSanta
Hortlund: congrats bud! There are some wrecks in Sweden you're not allowed to dive on. If I get taken diving one of 'um, I hope I get you as a judge :D.
I'll tell you everything about the difference between the A5 and A8 :D
Funny you should mention that. Before I got accepted at this court, I worked for a friend of mine who has his own company.
Let me know if you have heard about this one. In 97 a couple of Swedish divers discovered a wreck in Finnish territorial waters. It was the wreck of the "Jönköping". She was sunk in 1916 by a German submarine, and she was carrying a cargo of Champagne bottles. The swedes managed to salvage the cargo, and started selling off the champaign. Have you heard of that story?
Well, that was my friend and his company. And I got involved in the civil cases against some finnish amazinhunk who claimed he owned the cargo (on the grounds that his great grandfather had ordered two barrels of wine that also were aboard that ship. For some reason I have yet to fully understand, he claimed that this made him the sole owner of all cargo on that ship).
We also found a B17 bomber off the Island of Öland. Have you heard about that one? I have some gorgeous pictures of that one both on sidescanner and with camera. I have an old 12.7 mm standing in the bookshelf back home too from that aircraft. (There were no loss of life when the B17 ditched, in case someone got agitated)
[edit] name of the bomber was "Clay pidgeon" in case anyone is interested.
If there is anything you want to know about salvage law or what the legal aspects are of shipwrecks, let me know.
We went out in 2000 and found another wreck, this time a steamer named "Kyros" which was sunk by another German submarine in 1917. Kyros had a cargo of (amongst other things) 1000 bottles of cognac.
Man that was the perfect job... Off seasons I'd do all the paperwork and all legal stuff. In the summers I'd be on the ocean aboard our vessel operating the side scanner (could bore you to tears, sit and stare at the bottom for 8 hours, then sleep 8 hours).
Now Im sitting here at this desk, and my friend will be going to Indonesia in April to look for a Dutch east-india company ship loaded with china.
Thats what marriage will do to you ;)
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Hey Hortlund,
Was that the one where they had to design a makeshift cover to keep the champagn corks from popping as the pressure changed on assent? That was pretty cool. And were there also Casks of that were also recovered, but turned out to be ruined?
-Sikboy
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Let me know if you have heard about this one. In 97 a couple of Swedish divers discovered a wreck in Finnish territorial waters. It was the wreck of the "Jönköping". She was sunk in 1916 by a German submarine, and she was carrying a cargo of Champagne bottles. The swedes managed to salvage the cargo, and started selling off the champaign. Have you heard of that story?
How do the international law handle that ?
My guess is that the owner is the country on wich territory is the wreck ... that it ? or is it the person who discover the wreck ?
I'm pretty sure that if you dive on the wreck in pearl harbor and start to sell item you will be in trouble soon ... were is the difference ?
it's not a post intended to flame but more a candid question.
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Originally posted by Sikboy
Hey Hortlund,
Was that the one where they had to design a makeshift cover to keep the champagn corks from popping as the pressure changed on assent? That was pretty cool. And were there also Casks of that were also recovered, but turned out to be ruined?
-Sikboy
Yeah, thats the one. We had to make some makeshift rubber condome-like thingy we pulled over the corks, and then heated to make it stick. We still have problems with lekage though approx 1 000 bottles left).
The champagne tastes really cool though. Personally Ive never liked that stuff, but this one is special. Tastes sweet, kinda like raspberry. And when you open a bottle, and know that the air inside that bottle is from before 1916..its awesome.
There were 17 barrels of cognac aboard the ship too. But it was ruined. Turns out that if you have a oak barrel, put alcohol in it, and put the entire thing in water for 80+ years a complicated chemical process starts where the alcohol creeps through the wood. Basically what was in those barrels was a gooey dark brown mess that smelled like toejame.
My friend is writing a book about the experience and it will be something you guys should really read. Lots of things never made it to the public eye. Let me give you an example.
That finnish guy who took us to court. Well, he hired some really scary russian types to do some salvaging of his own (in the end they managed to steal something like 150 bottles). One night when our ship was at the wrecksite (I was not there) another ship appeared. A couple of hours later a small boat was discovered near our ship, and 3 guys were in the process of cutting our anchor cables (something that would have forced our ship to rtb <-hehe). This was before the cargo had been salvaged and we thought the cognac barrels were worth something, the estimated value of the cargo back then was something like $110 million. Anyway, our crew spotted them and a small naval battle started, the bad guys retreated though, but spent the next 2 days 100 m from our ship.
This all ended with our company hiring some Finnish Hells Angels as security guards. We figured that was the best way to beef security. It worked too. :)
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Hey Hortlund
Have you dived on the BONITA down at Gotland.
It`s a great wreck,and not that deep.
Think the cause of the wreckage was a collision in a heavy fog.
You now the term "a Donald Duck wreck",the kind you see in the DD-cartoons,,,,,,,,a complete ship ,,,just bottomized;)
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Originally posted by straffo
How do the international law handle that ?
[/b]
It doesnt. Finnish law applies.
If you are in international waters on the other hand, other rules apply. But it is a very complicated situation. "Who owns the wreck". Well, first you have the original owners, they want in. Then you have the insurance company who once paid the original owners when the wreck occured, they want in too. To furthermore complicate things, you have to realize that the ship and the cargo most often are owned by different organizations or persons. Add another owner and another insurance company (it is very rare that the same insurance company insures both the ship and the cargo).
Lets complicate things a bit more. Here is an example that is not too far from a situation I was involved in (cant give any details since the ship is still down there with its cargo).
Say Person A in the US buys alot of valuable stuff, lets call it diamonds, from Person B in Holland. Person B hires skipper C to deliver the diamonds to person A. Person B is also a smart guy, and he insures his diamonds with insurance company D. Skipper C has his ship insured at insurance company E.
SkipperC takes his ship out, but alas, a great storm hits, and the ship sinks with the diamonds (everyone in the crew survives though...lets make this a sunshine story). It is impossible to salvage the cargo from the ship because it sunk where it is very deep. Insurance company E pays skipper C for the boat. Insurance company D pays person B for the diamonds.
80 years pass.
Along comes diver F.
Now new technology has made it possible to dive down to skipper C's old ship.
Diver F locates the wreck of the vessel using a sidescanner. It is located in international waters, and it is even outside any economic zone any country claims.
Diver F notes the position of the wreck on his maps and return home to try to raise money for the salvage.
Along comes Diver G. Diver G has also decided to go after the wreck, and he also finds it. Diver G also manages to lower a robot and salvage the ships bell before bad weather stops his salvage operation.
NOW, diver F realizes that diver G is also looking for skipper C's wreck. Diver F takes diver G to court to prevent him from salvaging anything. Diver F claims that he has the rights to the ship and the cargo, because he found it first. To prove this he can present sidescanner images of the wreck.
Diver G shrugs and says "so what? I was the one who salvaged something from the wreck first, that means I am the one who has the wreck in my posession", he says and shows up the bell from the ship.
Enter Person A:s grandson (lets call him AA) who claims that divers F and G can do whatever they want with the ship, because he owns the cargo. AA shows everyone an old contract declaring that A (or his relatives) are the owners of the diamonds as soon as the skipper C's ship leaves port in Amsterdam.
Not so fast says insurance company D. WE own these diamonds because we once paid damages to persopn B when the ship was sunk. The right of ownership thus egressed to us.
Nooo says skipper Cs grandson (lets call him CC). I Own the diamonds because they are located on MY ship, and you cant just get access to that how you want. Sure you can salvage your diamonds, but you'll have to pay me lots of money before I let you TOUCH my ship.
YOUR SHIP? says insurance company E. WE paid your grandfather C reparations for that ship, thus the right of ownership has passed down to us.
Divers F and G starts to panic. WAIT they shout. You have no right to claim ownership to either the ship or the diamonds, because you have ABANDONED them. For all these 80 years, you have done NOTHING to try and salvage the ship. You havent even tried to find the ship. And BESIDES who says that The law in the US or HOLLAND should be applicable in this case? After all the ship is in international waters. Diver F:s diving vessel is registred in SOMALIA, and there the law clearly states that any person finding anything becomes the sole owner of that object.
You, as judge, suddenly feed the need for a large cold beer as everyone turns to you for a desicion...who owns the diamonds?
etc etc, I could actually throw in some more twists here, but this should giuve you an idea on how easy the legal aspects of this is.
(there is lots of money in this business, and its really fun too. If I decide against the career as proscecutor, this is prolly what Ill do instead)
:)
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Man, steve that diving on the b17 wreck must have been fantastic.
Congrats on your first 'judge' sitting :)
and youre in my squad!! woooohooo free legal advice on how to go about killing enemies of the Reich!!! :D
stsanta how much do you dive on wrecks then? and how experienced would anyone need to be ?
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Wow, that's very cool. I saw a show about this on the Discovery channel last year. I was just telling my wife about it (don't remember why it came up). Very cool to meet one of those dudes. Small world and all that lol
-Sikboy
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As Judge (J) I'm complelty lost (L) and if the cargo as any value I'll take all and run to the bermuda (B fek ... letter already allocated :) ) so I run to any c(O)untry withou(T) any (E)xtradition la(W) ;)
t(H)at's (I)t ?
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You have to be pretty experienced(imo),cause the most wrecks are in deep waters.
You can learn to dive fast,but the experience is essential.
And then you have to know diving in Scandinavia,is a dark and cold experience
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I have nver diven on anything deeper than 30m. I leave that for the pros. The Jönköping was 66m below the waves, and we had to hire a Danish company to do the "real" salvaging. The divers used "trimex" equipment in case you were wondering.
First we tried to salvage the bottles ourself, but we only got like 20-40 per day. And forget about the cognac barrels. So we decided to bring in this Danish company, to lift the wreck to the surface, and then empty it there.
It turned out the barrels were ruined, teh danes were scoundrels, and we would have been better off just sticking with those 20-40 bottles per day. But I guess its a lesson for the next wreck.
Some inside info:
The company is about to go bankrupt (not my friends company, but the company we set up to handle the champagne)
The most expensive bottle sold went for $3 250.
We have approx 1 000 bottles left and no buyers.
Total sales incomes from the champagne is about $1 millon.
One week after salvaging the ship, a japanese businessman offered to buy the entire cargo for $ 5 million but we declined.
Thats how far greed will take you :)