Talk:Nessim Gaon

Contesting deletion
I think that Nessim Gaon is a pretty notable figure, especially to people in Geneva. He holds many distinguishable positions in the Jewish world, his hotel in Geneva is one of the most famous and his legal battle with the Russian government has made world headlines. -NYC2TLV 05:45, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject class rating
This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as stub, and the rating on other projects was brought up to Stub class. BetacommandBot 07:27, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Russian debts
The dispute with Russia over apparent debts owed to Gaon seems worth adding, also his bankruptcy in 1996. Also "during the Second World War worked for the British intelligence". French Wikipedia's article is much better: http://translate.google.co.uk/translate?hl=en&sl=fr&u=http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nessim_Gaon http://www.kommersant.com/page.asp?idr=1&id=627106 http://www.sptimes.ru/index.php?action_id=2&story_id=16957 http://www.russiatoday.com/business/news/19667 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noga_Hilton Fences and windows (talk) 04:04, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Translation of French Wikipedia entry
Here is a translation of the French Wikipedia entry, mainly by Google translate and tidied up.

Nessim Gaon (David Nessim Gaon) (Arabic: نسيم جاعون), born in 1922 is a businessman Swiss trader, originally from Turkey.

Biography

He was born in 1922 in Khartoum of a Sephardic family from Turkey who emigrated to Egypt, and then to Sudan. His father is a politician and governor of Port Sudan on the Red Sea, where he spent his childhood - a colony of the British Empire until 1 January 1956.

He graduated from the University of Khartoum before joining the British Armed Forces during the Second World War with the rank of captain.

After the war, he began trading, made his fortune and married Renee Tammam, a cousin, before moving to Geneva in Switzerland (capital of the world trade in raw materials) with his family in 1952 where he developed real estate. He traded with Sudan, Israel, China, Russia, USSR, Argentina, Nigeria, in oilseed products and pesticides, becoming a specialist.

His group associated with the Hilton and built the Noga Hilton (Geneva) a five-star palace where he moved with his family, on the Quai du Mont-Blanc. He followed-up with the Noga Hilton in Cannes and then that of Abuja, Nigeria.

He became a leader of the Jewish community in Khartoum and leader of the Jewish Diaspora Ashkenazi and Sephardic in Geneva in 1966. In 1971, he became president of the World Sephardic Federation and vice president of the World Jewish Congress and sits on the board of the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel. He is also a founder and leading member of the Hekhal Hanes synagogue, the largest synagogue Sephardic Geneva inaugurated in 1972. [Ref. Necessary]

He befriended the former Israeli Prime Minister Menahem Begin and claims to have helped to bring together him and the Egyptian president Anwar Sadat, who led the peace treaty between Israel and Egypt in 1977 [ref. Needed]. Rumor has he is potential candidate for President of the Republic of Israel [ref. Needed]. His eldest daughter, Marguerite married Geon Joel Herzog, son of Chaim Herzog, former president of Israel between 1983 and 1993 [ref. Needed].

In 1991 Noga SA signed a contract for import/export business with Russia worth $1.5 billion: consumer goods against oil, fuel oil and Russian gas. Russian leaders then benefited from the dissolution of the USSR in 1991 to not pay, deny their claims, and accuse Gaon of affabulation, putting him in a serious position of overindebtedness and bankruptcy [ref. Needed].

At 82 years old, he determined in court, widely reported in Switzerland, to force Russia to honor its debts. The Noga Hilton was seized and he tries his hand, unsuccessfully, to seize dramatically with the help of media:

The bank accounts of the Russian Embassy in Paris. The four-masted Russian ship Sedov while it was at the maritime festival in Brest 54 impressionist masterpieces (Monet, Manet, Renoir, etc.) from the collection of the Pushkin Museum in Moscow exhibited in Switzerland at the Pierre Gianadda Foundation in Martigny A Su Su-30 and Mig of the Russian army during the Paris Air Show.

He also attempted to block $250 million held by the part-Russian Aeroflot at the headquarters of the International Air Transport Association (IATA), based in Geneva [ref. Needed].

Pressure from Moscow on Paris and Geneva frustrated his attempts to recover the debts [ref. Needed]. Beginning in 2003, Russia acknowledged a debt of $800 million on the condition that Gaon agrees not to touch 360 [ref. Needed].

Fences and windows (talk) 21:33, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

I AM MR. GAON'S EX-EMPLOYEE CREDITOR
My name is Mr. Jonathan Obikpo and I am 60 years of age. I am a Nigerian. I worked for Mr. Nessim David Gaon in his Noga Group of Companies in Nigeria between 1984 and 2003. Mr. Gaon has paid me part of my Final Entitlement and has withheld the balance, claiming that he will pay when he has money.

I have been following Mr. Nessim D. Gaon's efforts to get his Debtors to settle him. I see that he has managed to make appreciable progress in this regard. I am a Creditor and an ex-employee, who relied on what he told me when I joined his organization to serve him to the best of my ability. I cannot twist Mr. Gaon's arm, but what is Sauce for the Goose should also be Sauce for the Gander. He should toe the part of honour and settle me.

He has denied me Pension which was part of the Terms & Conditions of Service in force while I was there. He achieved this denial by claiming that I resigned my appointment with his Noga Group. This is untrue. He concocted my resignation partly to deny me Pension, and subsequently tried to stick a charge of stealing on me. In fairness to him, he later cleared me of the Stealing charge by issuing me a Certificate of Service in which he said that my conduct was satisfactory.

He has also withheld documentation for deductions made from my Salary in respect of PAYE (Pay As You Earn) Tax and NSITF (Nigerian Social Insurance Trust Fund). The NSITF document will enable me to process my Pension Fund now trapped in the NSITF office. I have begged Mr. Gaon for seven (7) years, to no avail. Mr. Gaon cannot claim money or documents due to do me in respect of these two items so I do not understand his refusal to instruct his officers to release same to me.

I am aware that Mr. Gaon is still earning plenty of money from his Noga Hotels Nigeria Ltd. building complex in Victoria Island, Lagos, Nigeria, so the question of his inability to pay my type of debt in Nigeria should not arise. The question of Title to the houses should also not arise, as what we may now have is "the more you look the less you see".

I trust that I shall soon come back to Wikipedia to edit this entry to show a happy ending to this tortuous and sad story.

Thank you, Ladies & Gentlemen, for your favourable assistance.

Jonathan Obikpo 08:49, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

External links modified
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 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20070328043425/http://www.bh.org.il:80/NAMES/POW/Gaon.asp to http://www.bh.org.il/Names/POW/Gaon.asp

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