THE UK INVESTS more in America than the rest of the EU does put together. But right now, sitting on the board of a UK company doing business in the States is disproportionately risky. Special relationship, shared values? Zealous district attorneys, often with a populist eye to securing political office, don’t see it that way.
A British non-executive chairman in New York awaiting his fate this week reminds us of those three British bankers still in Houston awaiting trial set for September next year, 14 months after their extradition. At the last minute, solely because of the public outrage at the time, they were granted bail: this is very unusual because accused non-US citizens, merely for exercising their legal rights and fighting extradition, are considered a flight risk and are generally imprisoned. And bail? Tagged, thousands of miles from home, not allowed to talk to each other without a lawyer present, facing financial ruin because of a system where no costs are awarded if a defence is successful (quite apart from the onerous level at which bail has been set).
Many more are on the slipway out of the UK to prison or ruinous bail in the US on evidence sufficient only to effect an arrest. Not a charge, not a trial — just an arrest. It’s not a “huge injustice” that British businessmen and women face trial in the US. Many, maybe all, have a case to answer. But this country’s freedoms are at risk while a supine UK Government dithers.
It is allowing British subjects — faced with the threat of jail without charge for years while their accusers prepare against them a case that they cannot afford to defend — to be pressurised through the plea-bargaining system and told that all this could end quickly with a guilty plea and co-operation.
My point is not about guilt or innocence, nor that America leads the way in getting tough on white-collar crime. It is that the rights of British people are being abused and our Government is doing nothing about it. It ignores the American Way that does not treat accused but still innocent British people (who represent no physical threat) in the way Britain does.
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Our Government must stop fighting each other and start fighting for those it was elected to look after.
Sir Digby Jones was until recently Director-General of the CBI.