Friday, October 17, 2008

London's slide towards pariah status

A new OECD report has chastised Britain for its tolerance of bribery. As the FT reports:

"In a scathing 79-page investigation, the 37-member group – which includes many of the world’s leading economies – said it was “disappointed and seriously concerned” by Britain’s failure to honour a key international anti-bribery convention. . . The group’s attacks highlight London’s slide towards pariah status over its failure to bring bribery prosecutions against its leading multinationals at a time when other European countries and the US are pursuing their companies."

As we've argued so often before, bribery is a tiny, tiny part of the problem, and it's a mistake for the OECD (or the FT, for that matter) at least not to mention the big story. Yet as far as it goes, the article is correct. Also note that we have just added this quote to our quotations page:

"The City of London,that state within a state which has never transmitted even the smallest piece of usable evidence to a foreign magistrate.
Eva Joly, investigating magistrate who broke open the "Elf Affair," Europe's biggest corruption investigation. In her book Notre affaire à tous, page 243"

Coming from her, that's hard-hitting criticism. Britain is really close to the heart of all the darkness in the global economy. And if that's not enough - then try this story, supplemented by this one.

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