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The BAE show trial that will damage Britain |
| Publication |
Daily Mail |
| Date | 2009-10-02 |
| Reporter | Comment |
| Web Link | www.dailymail.co.uk |
In the not too distant past, bribery and the winning of defence contracts
went hand in hand, but today Western countries have cleaned up their act and
defence firms have fallen into line.
BAE - Britain and Europe's largest defence company, with annual sales of
£18.5billion - is no exception.
Whatever practices it may once have pursued, the way this hugely successful
giant of British manufacturing does business now - with new management and a
tough set of working practices - is open and above board.
Victim of grandstanding politics: The BAE plant in Woodford, Cheshire
But its murky history has returned to haunt it. The Serious Fraud Office, a
notoriously hopeless institution that seldom manages to bring any major
wrongdoer to justice, has a new director.
He believes he has the evidence that BAE broke bribery laws, and he's hell bent
on getting it to admit wrongdoing.
More...
But BAE has a problem; if it accepts any kind of criminal conviction, it is likely to be banned from competing for contracts in America.
So, not unreasonably, it's told the SFO it will see them in court.
Of course, the law must be above politics and economics, but the SFO's position
looks regrettably close to political grandstanding.
It cannot be to Britain's advantage for our major defence firm to be barred from
U.S. business.
Nor is the prosecution going to clean up the industry; that's already happened.
What we will get is another protracted multi-million pound court case, which may
very well be unsuccessful.
The SFO should have come to an agreement with BAE under which it accepted
wrongdoing, paid a substantial settlement, but stopped short of a criminal
conviction.
That would have struck the right balance between the law and the national
interest.
Read more:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1217579/MAIL-COMMENT-The-BAE-trial-damage-Britain.html#ixzz0SnRvng9P