Trade show misrepresented speakers (01/28/96)

Trade show misrepresented speakers

by Roman Woronowycz

JERSEY CITY, N.J. - Judge Bohdan Futey of the Federal Court of Claims in Washington was caught completely off guard when he received a phone call from Ukraine's Ambassador to the United States Yuri Shcherbak to inform him that both were listed on an invitation the embassy had received to speak at a trade show. The problem was that neither Ambassador Shcherbak nor Judge Futey were aware they were to speak.

Several prominent Ukrainians and Americans were inaccurately listed as scheduled speakers at a conference held in Cleveland on December 19 titled, "Ukraine '95 Conference Doing Business in Ukraine," among them the ambassador, the judge, an attorney from a prominent U.S. legal firm with offices in Kyiv, as well as others. What is still not clear is just how it happened.

"I did not know anything about the conference until the ambassador called me," said Judge Futey. "I was not invited nor consented to participate." He also added that after calling several of the listed speakers that he knows personally, he discovered that Helen Khryshtalowych of the law firm Squire, Sanders and Dempsey, which has offices in Ukraine, and Ruth R. Harkin of the Overseas Private Investment Corp. also were unaware that their names were listed on the pamphlet as speakers.

Judge Futey called the action unethical misrepresentation of the facts at the least and possibly unlawful. He said his worry was that such misinformation could occur again. "My concern was that names of individuals who are knowledgeable in the field were used to attract people, when in fact these experts had not been invited."

Andrew Cheren, director of International Trade Information Inc., the firm that organized the business conference, said it was all a big mistake. Explaining away the faux pas, Mr. Cheren said that in the case of Judge Futey, a tentative list of speakers was sent to the printer, the judge's name among them, and mistakenly printed before final approval was received. "The printer did not check with us before going ahead," said Mr. Cheren.

Mr. Cheren called the mistaken inclusion of Ambassador Shcherbak on the list of speakers a misunderstanding. "This was a mistake of a worker here. She invited him at an art exhibit opening in mid-November at the embassy, but apparently he completely forgot," stated Mr. Cheren. "We should have checked with him several weeks before. When we finally did he wasn't in. It was a comedy of errors."

Mr. Cheren said he has straightened it out with the ambassador's office. "I got a fax from him personally," he explained. He also said he would apologize to Judge Futey. However, several weeks after the conference the judge still had not heard from Mr. Cheren.

Mr. Futey took pains to make it clear that he is in favor of trade and business conferences to promote Ukraine. "I will support them to the best of my ability, but they must be organized in a proper way. In order to avoid disappointments such as occurred here, we have to be careful in how we go about it."

At the Ukrainian Embassy, Trade Attache Mychaylo Reznyk suggested that people contact his office when they have any concerns or need additional information regarding trade conferences in the U.S.

It would be difficult to call this particular conference a success by any stretch of the meaning of the word. Inclement weather did not allow many speakers to land in Cleveland, where the airport was closed, and only 28 people attended. Undeterred, Mr. Cheren said that he has several more similar conferences planned for San Francisco, Missouri, Las Vegas and the New York/New Jersey area.

| Home Page |