World: From Russia, with Interest

Blissfully surrounded by bales of Canadian $1 bills totaling $36,000, Toronto Businessman Wallace Edwards, 54, hoisted a glass of Russian vodka and savored victory. In the preceding days, he had legally seized a $13 million freighter, frozen the bank accounts of the Soviet embassy in Ottawa and, in the process, succeeded in collecting a 13-year-old account from a rather unusual debtor—the Kremlin. It was without doubt one of the most dogged dunning operations on record.

It seems that in 1967 Edwards' now defunct Ottawa-based printing company had produced a magazine for the Soviet Pavilion at Expo '67 in Montreal, but the Soviets refused to pay the final $26,000 invoice for the printing order. When Edwards approached the Canadian Department of External Affairs for some needed muscle, he was informed that he would have little luck in collecting the debt. "They told me," says Edwards, "the Russians had immunity." Undeterred, Edwards considered trying to impound the ice skates of the visiting Soviet hockey team. In 1973 he persuaded a local court to order the seizure of a Soviet airliner, but that endeavor fizzled under pressure from a number of less determined Canadian government agencies.

Seven years and innumerable appeals later, Edwards' pertinacity finally paid off. Last week, as the Soviet freighter Stanislavskiy rested in its Toronto berth, Sheriff Joseph Bremner trotted up the gangplank and informed Captain Yuri Surnin that he was seizing his ship until the bill was paid. Pravda, the Soviet Communist Party newspaper, yowled that the boarding had been carried out by "police thugs acting like medieval pirates." But when Edwards also took actions to freeze the bank accounts of the Soviet embassy in Ottawa, Moscow warmed to the possibility of a settlement of the original bill plus interest, court costs and pier charges. While he was at it, Edwards also demanded, and duly received, a case of vodka and a pound of caviar for a celebration party. "Mr. Edwards," said one of his lawyers, "is one of the most unique clients we've ever had."