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Robert MaxwellFor the Coronation Street character, see Robert Maxwell (Coronation Street character) Ian Robert Maxwell (June 10, 1923 – November 5, 1991), British media proprietor, rose from poverty to build a great publishing empire, but was revealed after his mysterious death to have been a corporate criminal on a massive scale. Robert Maxwell was born Jan Ludvik Hoch in Slatinske Dly, a small town in what is now the Czech Republic, into a poor Jewish family. In 1939 the area was occupied by Nazi Germany. Most of his family were killed by the Nazis, but he escaped, arriving in Britain in 1940 as a 17-year-old refugee. He joined the British Army, where his intelligence and gift for languages gained him rapid promotion. After the war Maxwell used various contacts to go into business in Allied-occupied Germany, becoming the British and United States distributor for Springer Verlag, a publisher of scientific books. In 1951 he bought Pergamon Press, a minor textbook publisher, from Springer Verlag, and went into publishing on his own. He rapidly built Pergamon into a major publishing house. By the 1960s Maxwell was a wealthy man, while still espousing the socialist views he had acquired in his youth. In 1964 he was elected to the House of Commons for the British Labour Party, and was MP for Buckingham until he lost his seat in 1970. He was not popular in the Labour Party, having an arrogant and domineering manner. Maxwell had also already acquired a reputation for dishonest business practice. In 1969, as a result of a disputed takeover bid for Pergamon from an American company, he was subjected to an enquiry by the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI). The DTI report concluded: "We regret having to conclude that, notwithstanding Mr Maxwell's acknowledged abilities and energy, he is not in our opinion a person who can be relied on to exercise proper stewardship of a publicly quoted company." After leaving Parliament, Maxwell - like many successful publishers - sought to buy a daily newspaper, hoping to exercise political influence through the media. In 1980 he formed the Maxwell Communications Corporation, but was blocked from buying the News of the World by Rupert Murdoch, who became his great rival in the British newspaper world. In 1984 Maxwell bought Mirror Group Newspapers, publishers of the Daily Mirror, a traditionally pro-Labour paper. He also bought the American interests of the Macmillan publishing house. By the 1980s Maxwell's various companies owned the Daily Mirror, the Sunday Mirror, the Scottish Daily Record and Sunday Mail and several other newspapers, Pergamon Press, Nimbus Records, Collier books, Maxwell Directories, Prentice Hall Information Services, Macmillan (US) publishing, and the Berlitz language schools. He also owned a half-share of MTV in Europe and other European television interests, Maxwell Cable TV and Maxwell Entertainment. Rumours circulated for many years about Maxwell's heavy indebtedness and his unscrupulous business practices. But Maxwell had deep pockets and good lawyers, and threats of legal action silenced his potential critics. The satirical magazine Private Eye savagely lampooned him as a crazed "Cap'n Bob," but was unable to reveal what it knew about Maxwell's business. In fact his business empire was built on debt and deception. He had "borrowed" millions of pounds of his employees' money from his companies' pension funds to prop up his financial position. In the late 1980s he bought and sold companies at a rapid rate, apparently to conceal the unsound foundations of his business. In 1990 he launched an ambitious new project, a transnational newspaper called The European. The following year he was forced to sell Pergamon Press and Maxwell Directories to Elsevier for 440 million pounds to cover debts, but he used some of this money to buy the New York Daily News. By late 1990 investigative journalists, mainly from the Murdoch press, were exploring Maxwell's apparent manipulation of his company's pension schemes. During May 1991 it was reported that Maxwell companies and pension schemes were failing to meet statutory reporting obligations. Maxwell employees lodged complaints with British and U.S. regulatory agencies about the abuse of Maxwell company pension funds. Maxwell must have been aware that the truth about his corrupt practices was about to be revealed. In November 1991 Maxwell disappeared from his luxury yacht, Lady Ghislane, which was cruising off the Canary Islands, and his body was later found floating in the ocean. He was buried in Jerusalem. His death was officially attributed to accidental drowning, but in the circumstances it seems likely that he committed suicide. Maxwell's death triggered a flood of revelations about his criminal activities. It emerged that he had stolen hundreds of millions of pounds from his companies' pension funds to finance his corporate debt, his frantic takeovers and his lavish lifestyle. Thousands of Maxwell employees lost their pensions. The Maxwell companies filed for bankruptcy protection in 1992. His sons Kevin and Ian Maxwell were declared bankrupt with debts of 400 million pounds. In 1995 the two Maxwell sons and and two other former directors went on trial for fraud, but were acquitted in 1996. In 2001 the Department of Trade and Industry report on the collapse of the Maxwell companies accused both Maxwell and his sons of acting "inexcusably." External links Maxwell, Robert Maxwell, Robert Maxwell, Robert Maxwell, Robert Maxwell, Robert Maxwell, Robert
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