By Michael Peel, Legal Correspondent
Leading industrialised nations have fired a stinging broadside at Britain over its failure to tackle corporate bribery overseas, at a time when other countries are pursuing big-name multinationals.
The anti-bribery working group of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development attacked London’s performance in a letter delivered to the government in June, the Financial Times has learned.
The letter – sent before the House of Lords backed the scrapping of an investigation into BAE Systems’ Saudi arms deals – is a sign of how Britain’s failure to bring cases against its multinationals is alienating European and US allies who are pursuing their companies.
The message suggests London can expect a tough time at the next meeting of the OECD anti-bribery group in October, where members could take the embarrassing and unprecedented step of pushing for Britain to be suspended.
One person who has seen the letter said it was “particularly undiplomatic” and laid out the “full menu” of criticisms about Britain’s performance on tackling bribery by its businesses and nationals overseas.
The letter – signed on behalf of the anti-bribery group’s members by Mark Pieth, its chairman – was sent days before Angel Gurría, OECD secretary-general, visited London in June, people familiar with its contents said.
The letter attacked Britain over its failure to bring a single overseas bribery case or to deliver on a years-old pledge to update its anti-corruption laws. It also raised concerns that the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) would downgrade its commitment to tackling corporate foreign bribery, because of plans for it to focus more on public education and consumer crimes such as share scams.
The letter was approved by all the anti-bribery group’s 37 members except Britain, people familiar with its contents said. Those members include the US, Japan and Europe’s leading economies. Anti-corruption campaigners and lawyers say Britain has fallen behind other previously poorly-performing nations such as France and Germany, which have launched investigations into leading companies such as Siemens and Alstom, the engineering groups.
The US has brought dozens of corruption cases over the past 30 years and companies under investigation include Halliburton, the oil services group formerly headed by Dick Cheney, the vice-president.
British campaigners say the undoubted commitment of some anti-corruption investigators is being neutered by archaic laws and a lack of political will to pursue cases that – as with BAE – are seen as potentially damaging to British strategic and commercial interests. The OECD anti-bribery group’s October meeting will review the results of a probe it launched last year into London’s efforts to tackle corruption, after the scrapping of the BAE-Saudi probe in 2006 caused an international outcry.
The Department for Business said it would respond to the criticisms outlined in the letter ahead of the October meeting. The department added that the government planned to bring forward a draft bribery bill for scrutiny during the next parliamentary session.
Richard Alderman, the director of the SFO, said dealing with corruption was a “priority” for the agency. He expected to publish proposals soon on how it could better deal with corruption, including by working with business more to prevent bribery from happening.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008