NewsLab

This is the story of a prince and his employees, but it’s not one with a happy end. It’s the story of HH Prince Khalid Bin Fahd Bin Abdullah Bin Abdulrahman Al Saud, owner of the Mawarid Group, a large Saudi Arabian multinational (as can you see from the website they place a lot of importance on discretion). He called in Cinema and TV experts from all over the world to Rome, to create the satellite TV station Orbit. Then, when no longer needed, abandoned them in a foreign country without paying them what they’re due. Although many have worked 13 years his television station, he didn’t hesitate to use the Italian welfare system that helps “companies in crisis” providing economic support for employees who are about to be fired.
It was 1993 when Orbit Satellite Pay-Tv began to broadcast it’s first Arabic and English language channels for the Middle East and North Africa from it’s Rome headquarters. It was then, all those years ago, that hundreds of professionals from Italy, England, United States, but especially many Arab countries gathered to work together in this new multicultural reality.
For nearly two years a restructuring plan has seen the transfer of most of it’s television production elsewhere, mainly in Bahrain and Lebanon. Orbit answers to Mawarid, which is made up of 30 companies which operate together in a wide variety of business throughout the world. The scope of the Group’s activities can be well understood through its extensive network of relationships with other major companies and multinationals. For example, Mawarid owns 50% of American Express GCC, and on behalf of the American Express Corporation it distributes credit cards in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, UAE and Oman. Restaurant chains like Pizza Hut, Wendy’s and Taco Bell among many, are entirely managed by the Group. The name of Mawarid is linked not only to trademarks such as “The Halston” and “Princess Marcella Borghese” but also Revlon, Etienne Aigner Cosmetics, Helene Curtis, Christian Dior, Salvatore Ferragamo, and Prenatal Kickers.
This gives an idea of the turnover in which the Group is involved and does not explain the treatment reserved for it’s employees who have worked hard for so many years.
But for the Orbit CC Italy the Mawarid has no more money and the Italian state, with tax payers money, is “obliged” to help out these “entrepreneurs in difficulty”. Many of Orbit’s workers are foreigners, Arabic speaking professionals with family. Now they find themselves in a situation of extreme difficulty which they don’t know how to solve: if they remain in Italy they can’t find a job. These days it is difficult even for Italian’s, but if they return to their country there is no longer a future guaranteed for them or for their children either.

IL PRINCIPE SAUDITA NON HA PIU’ SOLDI MA NON SI PREOCCUPA, CI PENSA L’INPS AD AIUTARLO