UK Businessmen Face US Extradition

by Robin Pilgrim, LawAndTax-News.com, London

17 May 2005

Britain's Extradition Act is coming under fire because of two cases in which US prosecutors are seeking to extradite UK businessmen for alleged 'white-collar' crimes committed at their US subsidiaries.

The extradition treaty between the US and the UK, passed in a hurry after 9/11, and then incorporated into the existing UK Extradition Act, allows US prosecutors to extradite based simply on an accusation of an imprisonable offence, without bringing a prima facie case, which is required under most of the UK's extradition treaties.

Last week, at Bow Street Magistrates' Court, Ian Norris, the former chief executive of FTSE 250 company Morgan Crucible, was defending himself against an extradition request relating to a price fixing cartel allegedly operated by Morgan between 1989 and 1998. Because price-fixing did not become an offence in the UK until 2003, Mr Norris, 62, is facing seven counts of conspiracy to defraud and two counts of perverting the course of justice.

In a parallel case, the same court ruled last October in favour of extraditing the 'NatWest 3', who are accused of involvement in Enron-related wire-fraud offences. That case is now in the hands of Home Secretary Charles Clarke, and the Bow Street judge who heard both cases, Nicholas Evans, said he would reserve judgement on Mr Norris until the result of the NatWest 3 case is known.

Last week's court heard that Morgan Crucible, which was led by Mr Norris between 1998 and 2002, had played a leading role in reporting the cartel in Europe, which was operated with five European competitors, to officials at the European Commission. The Commission then handed down fines totalling €101.4m (£69m) in 2003 to Morgan's co-conspirators, while Morgan itself was not fined.

Alun Jones QC, defending, told the Bow Street court: "The US actually knew that Mr Norris was the first person to report this but he is the only person of any of the representatives of the companies to be prosecuted." However David Perry, for the US prosecutors, said "a number of executives met to discuss how they might stop an investigation in the US because they were fearful of it spilling into Europe" at Heathrow Airport in 2001.

Alun Jones told the court that the Extradition Act 2003 had been a "Trojan horse" for US white-collar crime prosecutors, and cited a parliamentary debate that took place before the Act was passed, during which Home Office minister Caroline Flint promised British citizens would not be extradited on price-fixing charges in the US. "We do not have such a range of offences involving financial crime ... Cases such as price-fixing would not apply," she said.

Mr Norris's lawyers have launched a separate application for a judicial review at the high court into extradition arrangements between Britain and the US. Home Office figures show there have been 43 requests from American prosecutors under the Act, of which 22 relate to white-collar crime charges, while only three relate to terrorism suspects.

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