Re: Travelling cigars


"Hutch" <champboat@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:lrv553dn6p3c3v1qsds6dqb1lb4dndtipt@xxxxxxxxxx
On Tue, 22 May 2007 00:28:38 +0100, "Alex W." <ingilt@xxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:



And this bloke is being extradited for offences which did not even exist
in
the UK at the time:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2007/01/25/bcnorris25.xml



http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig7/oliva4.html

Extradition inequality

Making legal history is not always a voluntary activity. Ian Norris has the
unwanted distinction of setting two unenviable precedents. The former
executive at Morgan Crucible, a UK manufacturing group, was the first
British citizen to be the subject of an extradition request from the United
States that did not require the US to prove there was a case to answer. He
is also the first example of America seeking to extradite a British citizen
on anti-trust charges. The High Court on Thursday dismissed his appeal
against extradition in a judgment with far-reaching consequences.

The charges, which Mr Norris strongly denies, relate to fixing the price of
carbon products between 1989 and 2000. Thursday's judgment turned on whether
a criminal offence of cartel activity was created only by the Enterprise Act
that came into force in the UK in 2003, or whether such activity amounted to
the long-standing criminal offence of conspiracy to defraud. The court ruled
that if the evidence showed that price-fixing was dishonest, then it could
be treated as conspiracy to defraud.

Mr Norris' predicament will heighten unease about the use of fast-track
extradition arrangements to deal with white-collar crime. Since the US-UK
extradition treaty was belatedly ratified by the Senate last year, the
arrangements are more balanced than before. But they still contain an
intrinsic inequality. A British request to the US must show "probable cause"
that the person it is seeking to extradite committed the offence: an
American request to the UK has to meet only a lower test. The UK government
on Thursday published guidelines on making extradition work fairly. But this
is peripheral compared with the failure to address the unfairness at the
heart of the arrangement.

The clearer definition of when price-fixing constitutes a long-standing
criminal offence is welcome. If the judgment had concluded that only the
Enterprise Act criminalised cartel activity, it would have made it much
harder for prosecutors to pursue those accused of price-fixing before that
came into force. Instead, by ruling that sometimes price-fixing can be a
conspiracy to defraud, it opened up the possibility that others in business
may be on the receiving end of US Department of Justice interest in
activities that pre-date the act.

Tough pursuit of organisations that engage in cartels is laudable. As well
as punishing wrongdoers it can also be a useful deterrent. To command
general support, the approach must clearly be based on certainty and
fairness. The High Court ruling has helped on certainty, but the issue is
serious enough to merit consideration by the House of Lords, to which Mr
Norris has said he intends to appeal. As to fairness, the current unequal
extradition arrangements make every case a cause célèbre. It is time to
level the pitch.


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