@metaning @ajsadauskas You just reminded me of that whole saga.

The story was that Moses Obeid, son of Eddie, set up a company to manufacture multipurpose poles.

He then didn't pay the Sydney City Council any royalties for the design it commissioned.

Obied then allegedly sold them to Singapore,

"The saga began in 1996, when an industrial designer at the council designed a pole to ''consolidate and refine'' the hodge-podge of poles in Sydney's streets - used for street and traffic lights, and to hang signs and banners - into a single pole.

"The solution was an aluminium structure known as a ''smartpole'' that uses a special track at its top to hold lights, signs and banners.

"The pole went into production just before the Sydney Olympics in 2000 and was used to spruce up the city for the Games.

"The poles can be seen in Martin Place and Taylor Square, and in Macquarie, George and Oxford streets.

"But a decade on from their development the rights to the proceeds of their commercialisation - through sales to other councils in NSW, interstate and overseas - are in dispute.

"The council alleges the highly entrepreneurial Mr Obeid and Streetscape breached their licence to make the smartpoles by selling a large number of them in Dubai and Singapore without payment of any royalties.

"It alleges Streetscape has sold 4000 poles in Australia, 10,000 in the United Arab Emirates, and others in Singapore.

"But the company says it has developed its own poles and has not sold any of the council's multifunction poles in the UAE."

https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/obeids-6-million-pole-dance-ends-up-in-supreme-court-20110415-1dhwb.html

The Supreme Court eventually found in Sydney City Council's favour. But the council ended up settling because it basically became unviable to force the Obeids to pay up:

"The City of Sydney has settled a long and costly legal battle with Moses Obeid over street poles, admitting it would be more expensive to fight on than to walk away.

"Mr Obeid, the middle son of corrupt former Labor minister Eddie, was ordered by the Supreme Court in 2012 to pay $12 million in damages after it found his company Streetscape Projects had breached a licence agreement with the council to use the intellectual property in multi-function streetpoles known as "smartpoles".

"But the council has been fighting for years to extract the damages from Mr Obeid.

"The settlement, which comes on the same day Fairfax Media revealed a $9 million tax battle between the Obeid family and the Australian Taxation Office, reportedly involves each side paying their multi-million dollar legal costs but no damages will be paid."

https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/city-of-sydney-settles-longrunning-legal-battle-with-moses-obeid-over-street-poles-20140725-zws3y.html

#auspol #NSWpol