Ethics and governance in the European Financial centers

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Yesterday a conference took place in Paris to discuss the topic "Creating an Area of Criminal Justice in the European Union : Beyond the legal texts"

The organisator was The European Judges and Prosecutors Association (EJPA) , that aims at :
- gathering together judges, prosecutors and citizens from the European Union and from countries who have applied to EU membership, interested in matters of judicial cooperation ;
- improving the mutual knowledge of our judiciary systems.

Judges and prosecutors from eleven European countries discussed in Paris what is to be done to turn theory into practice. How to move beyond the legal texts towards a culture of systematic cooperation between national judicial authorities in the EU?

Luc Frieden, who is Minister of Justice in Luxembourg, opened the conference. Despite weaknesses in Luxembourg because in many cases negligence has replaced pragmatism he is willing to build an efficient legal and regulatory framework even though professionals may repudiate the will (Cf. the draft law to transpose the second directive and reactions to remove from the text sensitive provisions)

Detailed conference programme: http://www.amue-ejpa.org/en/contenu.php?id=2

Transparency International (TI) has submitted a follow-up letter to the Secretary General of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) calling for specific action to be taken on the UK government’s decision to terminate the investigation of allegations of bribery by BAE Systems Plc (BAeS) in the UK-Saudi Arabia Al Yamamah defence contract. BAeS, Britain’s largest defence contractor, has throughout denied any wrongdoing.

The letter is the latest contribution by the TI secretariat and TI’s national chapter in the UK to efforts by a large coalition of civil society organisations to press the OECD to persuade the UK government to undo the damage caused by the termination of the investigation.

TI asks that the OECD urge the UK government to promptly undertake the following:

- Reinstate the investigation and move ahead with prosecutions in foreign bribery cases where justified by evidence, without further delays.
- Encourage BAeS to make a public statement making clear that it is following a strict anti-bribery policy, backed up by a rigorous compliance programme, consistent with the best practices of leading MNCs. Provision should be made for independent verification of BAeS compliance programme.
The letter goes on to say that TI believes that the UK government’s assertion that national security interests justify the termination of the Al Yamamah investigation violates Article 5 of the Convention. A recent brief from Yale University Law School indicates that a party to the OECD Convention cannot claim a national security exception simply by asserting that national security interests would be damaged by proceeding with a foreign bribery investigation or prosecution. The brief, which was sent to the OECD on 7 March 2007, can be read in full in the attachment below.

The timing of the letter precedes the OECD’s Working Group on Bribery, which meets tomorrow to review the UK government’s response to the March 2005 OECD Phase 2 Report and the Japanese government’s response to the June 2006 Phase 2 bis Report. The Al Yamamah issue also is on the agenda of the meeting.

Both the UK and Japanese governments have performed poorly on enforcement of the OECD Convention and are under scrutiny by the OECD Working Group on Bribery. Their poor performance also was noted in the 2006 TI Progress Report on the OECD Convention’s Enforcement.

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