Case in point, my country was paid $28 million in 1929 by the Swedish Government (or a specific Swedish company, not sure) so that the Swedes would take over control over the entire matches market in Romania, becoming a monopolist, in fact. This by itself is no thing to brag home about, but that's how capitalism works.
20 years later a new regime is installed, the communists, who don't have a pretty view on capitalism much less so on monopolistic practices in which they are not the main actors, so they decide to nationalize the Romanian matches industry from under the Swedes' control.
Come 1989 and the fall of Communism the Swedes become active again and now ask us for $800 million as compensation, never mind that most probably the initial investment had most certainly paid by itself in those 20 years in which it had monopolistic control over a quite big market. To make sure that they get their money back a Swedish official even bribes one of our economy ministers with around $600,000 (for which said Swedish official had some issues at home, probably nothing came out of it), and it all got settled down for "only" $120 million in 2003.
This only happens because countries like Sweden have a disproportionate influence on the world stage. We (Romania) also got swindled out of $1 billion by Saddam's Iraq, the cost of us selling things and services to them in the 1980s. After Saddam fell the Iraqi Government and its babysitters (the US) never felt the urgency of paying us back, our Government also closed their eyes because the US is "actively protecting us against the bad Russian Bear from the East", plus, if a country like Romania would ask for such a big sum of money back you can be pretty sure that no-one in the Western media would pick the story up like it happened in Sweden's case.