Corruption is a Crime

The Law Lords have finally ruled on the Serious Fraud Office’s appeal against the High Court’s decision in April that the SFO acted unlawfully in ending its investigation into the Al-Yamamah arms deal.

The House of Lords has overturned that decision and declared that the director of the SFO acted lawfully and within his powers when he ended the inquiry.

On the fact of it, this is disappointing. But the real issue is not whether the SFO acted unlawfully - it’s the political pressure apparently put on the SFO by ministers, and the reasons behind the decision to drop the investigation. That’s why we’re continuing to campaign for an independent inquiry into how and why the Serious Fraud Office’s investigation was ended.

And there are some interesting comments from the Law Lords in this regard, as the BBC reports:

Baroness Hale said she would have liked to have been able to uphold the court’s decision that the SFO’s director acted unlawfully because it was “extremely distasteful that an independent public official should feel himself obliged to give way to threats of any sort”.
[...]
Lord Bingham, said the SFO director Robert Wardle “was confronted by an ugly and obviously unwelcome threat”.

The nature and source of those threats still need to be exposed.

Associated Press reports:

Swiss authorities have widened a corruption investigation linked to arms deals by the British aerospace company BAE Systems PLC, prosecutors said.

Federal prosecutors are conducting three criminal investigations into possible money laundering linked to the company, spokeswoman Jeannette Balmer told The Associated Press late Wednesday.

Previously prosecutors had confirmed only one investigation and Balmer declined to comment on what prompted Swiss authorities to open two additional investigations.

The investigations center on allegations that BAE used Swiss bank accounts to pay millions of pounds (dollars) in bribes to officials from Saudi Arabia in return for contracts. BAE has always said it acted lawfully.

You can read more here.