should bribing foreigners be legal?

Not me. The customer is usually deemed to be right so doing business with the Saudis is always going to be on their terms or not at all. If we refuse, who's the loser. Us! The Saudis buy from the less prissy French or the pragmatic Yanks. Good bye to another sector of the UK manufacturing sector, but hey, won't all the handwringers sleep so easy in their beds.

It is illegal because we are party to an international agreement that prohibits it, and this agreement says we have agreed to combat bribery because it is "a widespread phenomenon in international business transactions, including trade and investment, which raises serious moral and political concerns, undermines good governance and economic development, and distorts international competitive conditions".

This isn't a decision about whether bribery is illegal, but whether the government had the legal power to require the investigation to be dropped.

Matti

and          .

It's a lot of fuss over nothing and AIUI this has been and remains the way to do business in some countries as it used to be here in the UK - when in Rome &c.

j

You dont think the British Government should uphold the 'Rule of Law'?

Gaz

Yes it should uphold the rule of law (broadly) and yes it does (broadly) in the same way as no doubt you and I and everyone else. I would imagine that in some foreign jurisdictions it all gets a bit nebulous with time honoured practices being increasingly at odds with modern laws.

j

It's a lot of fuss over nothing and AIUI this has been and remains the way to do business in some countries as it used to be here in the UK - when in Rome &c.

I suspect it's the way business is done here *now* in many instances. Planning permissions, perhaps?

In this country, our rules. In SA, their rules. It usual to pay a handsome dividend to the person who facilitates a deal in that part of the world. If a UK company can do that and still make a profit on the deal, so be it. These transactions are expected to be confidential and it would have been an act of bad faith to allow the SFO to break that confidence. One more UK law that works against the interests of this country and it's citizens

While at it , why is insider-trading illegal?

Like Mr Reuter inaugurating long distance telegraph - in the capitilist ethic if you have no edge then there is no point in gambling, as the house usually wins.

ps What they aren't telling you about DNA profiles and what Special Branch don't want you to know.

or nutteingd in a search engine. Valid email nutteing@fastmail.....fm (remove 4 of the 5 dots) Ignore any other apparent em address used to post this message - it is defunct due to spam.

On Thu, 10 Apr 2008 at 08:02:43, djornsk wrote in uk.legal :

Then we should tell such countries what to do with their dirty contracts!

Any UK competitor who does not do the same, making it IMO an agreement contrary to the Competition Act 1998.

Colin Bignell

True...

Gaz

If that organisation depends on contracts placed by the taxpayer-funded UK Ministry of Defence for its place in society, much less as a guarantor of last resort for its viability, it has a duty to account to the British public for its conduct.

And such conduct as we have seen demonstrated in this case, whilst it may be good enough for a corrupt desert sheikdom that doesn't give a carrot about human rights, is not acceptable for a country which claims the right to invade others in the name of such rights. Nor for a country which claims the right to lecture China about Tibet.

And such hypocrisy is so transparent that as a result it reduces the chances of Britain's gaining future business in other non-defence related fields, when our potential customers will not touch us with a barge pole.

And for this you and I are paying. So we all get hurt.

gland          .

To stop people having an unfair advantage and causing people to lose confidence in the UK capital markets.

Quite and the British Public expect it to fight tooth and nail for British jobs.

Customers will deal with anyone with the right product at the right price viz. the public who get their athletes to suffer over Tibet on their behalf whilst continuing to buy Chinese products.

j

I'm glad your wealthy enough to do without the trade. Others are not so lucky and rely upon export contracts to feed their families.

Paying a third party for facilitating a contract is not considered bribery in some countries. Just because it offends some sections of this islands community doesn't make it wrong. If your suggested UK competitor is disadvantaged because of their sensitive business practices then they won't just lose out to other less particular UK businesses but to foreign competitors too.

Then we shouldn't invade others to try and impose our version of how best to run a country. As for lecturing China, they are wise enough to just ignore us whilst taking our money and sending the goods.

I don't believe it. Hypocracy and Goverments are bedfellows around the world.

You are apparently wealthy enough not to care what our potential customers think of the conduct of our public companies and our MoD.