If Britain had wanted to adopt America’s Chapter 11 insolvency regime it would have incorporated it in the Enterprise Act of 2002. Instead, when the bankruptcy process was changed we took the best parts of the US system and rejected the rest.
To describe the UK government’s latest proposed legislation on discrimination as a dogs’ dinner should not be taken as referring only to male canines. Or to suggest that other animals will not be fed either. But the proposals make a mess messier, however well-meant.
Those groups that have been discriminated against in past generations are to be compensated by being put at the front of the queue for jobs. The idea that discrimination is the best way to counter discrimination highlights the muddled thinking.
Governments always fight the last economic battle that they lost. So today the sole target the Bank of England is told to hit is to control inflation lest we have a re-run of the 1970s or 1980s when prices rose by well over 20 per cent annually.
Before that the government lodestar was one of the monetary growth measures such as M4, and prior to that it was the balance of payments and the value of the pound that dictated policy to avoid a repeat the 1960s-style runs on the pound.
Fines of €1.7bn may be as financially insignificant to mighty Microsoft as a parking fine but the US computer software group is fighting the EU’s penalties with the determination of a motorist who knows he is right – even if he also knows that the odds are loaded in favour of the system.
Microsoft is appealing against the record €899m fine imposed in February for alleged anti-competitive practices. That was on top of €497m penalty imposed in 2004 and the €281m that followed two years later.
Some organisations – government, bodies like the Bank of England and even a few companies – keep a register of hospitality received by their employees. Lord Woolf’s report on (and for) BAE Systems suggests a log of gifts given.
The former Lord Chief Justice was asked to produce his report because BAE’s critics think gifts are a synonym for bribes.
Is British business riddled with corruption? Or is the Office of Fair Trading being overzealous in seeking so much evidence of price fixing? To an outsider – a UK consumer or a foreign enterprise – the impression is that commerce is involved in an anti-competitive conspiracy.
The OFT has publicly investigated alleged cartels in milk, airfares, construction, tobacco sales and now, supermarket grocery prices. Mostly the accusations are unproved, though Britain Airways was heavily fined for agreeing fuel surcharges and some retailers confessed to colluding over the price of milk, even though they thought they were following government policy.
The corporate world is gearing itself up for a high-profile libel action in which the winner might well also turn out to be the loser. Tesco is suing The Guardian over stories in the newspaper saying the supermarket group was avoiding £1bn tax by using offshore vehicles.
It looks set to be messy. The Guardian chairman, City bigwig Sir Paul Myners, has been dragged in because Tesco’s chairman allegedly warned him the story was incorrect. The newspaper’s chief executive is in an invidious position too because she is a non-executive director of the retailer. It turns out the Guardian Media group uses similar offshore structures for its own acquisitions.
There is no need for senior heads to roll at the Financial Services Authority following its admission of inadequacies in policing Northern Rock. Apart from the futility of demanding ritual sacrifices, Hector Sants took over as chief executive only last summer after the Rock started to crumble, and chairman Sir Callum McCarthy is set to go in September anyway.
The Office of Fair Trading has lost no time following HMRC’s example of bribing a foreign bank employee to dish details of Brits with Liechtenstein bank accounts: the competition regulator is offering up to £100,000 to UK employees who accuse their own companies of price-fixing.
This is what industrial espionage looks like when given the state’s seal of approval.
Can two wrongs make a right? Is it acceptable for HM Revenue and Customs to pay money for stolen data if that information reveals details of UK tax evaders?
Britain’s tax collectors have followed their German colleagues in buying a list of UK customers with Liechtenstein bank accounts. The Germans paid more than £3m to an employee of the bank for its list and justifies the bribe by the information it has yielded. It has already produced high-profile resignations of German officials, though so far, no charges.
