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The story goes that in late 2002 a government administrator pointed out to the the folks at Crown Beverages that the
Bangladesh Government "Act 20 of 1990" defined beer as having an alcholic content higher than something close to 5%,
and that there was in effect a loophole that a beverage under 5% alcohol was therefore "non-alcoholic". Crown
Beverage Ltd. decided to take advantage of the situation and promptly rushed the two products shown below into production
labeling them "Non Alcholic Malt Beverage" and "Energy Drink". Since the international brewers had not thought it necessary
to register their trademarked labels in Bangladesh, Crown also took advantage of that situation and used graphics that closely
resembled Carlsberg's and Foster's brand images. A few of the OC/OCers came across an article on the BBC website in
early 2003 and the race was on to get a few cans before the laws were changed. By April of 2003 the laws were "corrected"
and the offending beverage was ordered destroyed. Christoph Neunzig of Germany was able to acquire a few of each of
the cans and he has been carefully trading them since.
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