Carl Borgström

"Through ingenious solutions, the family, primarily Hans, and its employees, especially Carl Borgström and the administrative head at the headquarters, Ingvar Wenehed, set up a network of companies whose purpose was to keep money outside of Sweden, beyond Swedish taxation, and beyond Swedish currency regulations. In Switzerland, the company Société Outremère (Socomer) was registered, created solely to absorb commission money for all the paper, plastic, paint, and aluminum that Tetra Pak purchased from suppliers. Normally, such purchases go through an agent who receives a commission of 2–5 percent of the invoiced amount. What the agent is paid for is that he formally takes on the credit risk until the goods are paid for by the buyer. If, for example, the buyer goes bankrupt before the payment date, it is the agent who takes the financial hit."

"After returning to Sweden, Erik Torudd continued to advocate for the use of the S-50 and to apply HP Smith’s method to it. Now, it seemed that the winds were changing within the company. The board of Tetra Pak now included Ruben, Gad, Hans, Holger Crafoord, Erik Torudd, and the company’s skilled lawyer, Carl Borgström. When the dark-suited gentlemen gathered for a board meeting on the morning of February 4, 1952, they decided to build a copy of HP Smith’s machine. Erik Torudd and Harry Järund, who was co-opted onto the board, fought hard against the decision. Both thought it was better to either buy a finished machine or drawings. Otherwise, they risked several years being lost to development. Moreover, they thought it was immoral to copy someone else’s work. But they spoke to deaf ears. Tetra would copy the HP Smith machine. Responsible for the project were the technical genius Nils Andersson and Gad. The decision was bold, but entirely legal. Carr Sherman had voluntarily shown them a design that was not yet patented."

"At a meeting between Ruben, Erik Torudd, and the company’s lawyer, Carl Borgström, Ruben initially refused to acknowledge that Benzon was the true inventor. However, after some persuasion, he was forced to recognize the accomplished fact: that Boye Benzon could sue both Ruben and the company. But even then, he did not want to admit that Benzon was the true inventor. He had a very different perception of who is an inventor and who is not. “We constantly come back to the same question: Who really is an inventor, the person who orders a solution to a problem or the one who comes up with the solution?” he argued against the more conventional definition of inventor that Torudd and Borgström advocated."

"“If I think about what they have meant to us - Erik Wallenberg, through his Tetra invention, Gunnar Brime through 27 years of activity in ÅR, Torsten Jeppsson through his devoted, tremendously hard work over many years, Harry Järund through his inventing activities, Stig Sunner through his scientific advising, Erik Torudd for his commitment to Tetra Pak from the very first minute, Göte Engfors through his 20-year, significantly underpaid directorship in our various companies, and Carl Borgström’s exceptionally important advising for our operations - then the price you mention, as far as I can judge, is really not reasonable,” he continued. But Holger never had the chance to carry out his plan to help the remaining small shareholders."