www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-02-17/...erkel-backs-euronet-.html
Former hostage CEO gets $12 million payoff.
Vladislav Baumgertner, the former chief executive of Russian potash giant Uralkali, will get a $12 million golden parachute. That should be enough to compensate him for his troubles: Last year Baumgertner announced his company would pull out of a cartel deal with its long-time partner Belaruskali, owned by the state of Belarus, and was promptly arrested in that country's capital, Minsk. Since last August, Baumgertner has been in jail and then under house arrest in Belarus and Russia, where he was extradited. The cartel's breakup caused panic in the global potash market, which feared a ruthless price war. Uralkali's biggest shareholder, billionaire Suleiman Kerimov, was forced to sell the company. Bill Doyle, chief executive of Uralkali's U.S. competitor Potash Corp., called Baumgertner's move "the single dumbest thing that I've ever seen." But one of the biggest payoffs in Russian corporate history proves the former Uralkali chief may not be so dumb after all.