Post by benson on Jan 20, 2017 14:22:44 GMT
Rolls-Royce, which this week agreed to pay £671m in penalties after admitting it had engaged in corruption, lobbied ministers to weaken proposed curbs on bribery a decade ago.
The effort to dilute anti-bribery regulations was conducted under the leadership of Sir John Rose, the firm’s chief executive until 2011, who is facing calls from Labour to be stripped of his knighthood after the bribery settlement.
Documents from a 2004 court case show how Rolls-Royce, in alliance with other multinationals, exerted pressure on the government to water down proposals that were intended to combat bribery.
The documents detail how Rolls-Royce and the other multinationals objected to the proposals and began privately to lobby against them.
Minutes of a meeting in July 2004 show that Rolls-Royce told civil servants it refused to disclose any details of its middlemen to the government as they saw these arrangements as strictly private.
At another meeting the following month, Rolls-Royce and the other firms again argued for secrecy on the grounds that they “operated in a particular environment” that “was very competitive with a small number of large companies”.
“These competitors would gain a major commercial advantage if they knew who [Rolls-Royce]’s intermediaries were. These details were very commercially sensitive. The network of agents/intermediaries was a valuable asset built up over a number of years and offered important commercial advantages such as being able to open doors … Even within the companies the names were restricted to a small number of senior employees,” the minutes record.
The then Labour government subsequently diluted the anti-bribery proposals. That decision was challenged in a legal action brought by the anti-corruption campaign group Corner House. As a result, the lobbying documents were released.
www.theguardian.com/business/2017/jan/19/rolls-royce-lobbied-ministers-to-weaken-anti-bribery-proposals
The effort to dilute anti-bribery regulations was conducted under the leadership of Sir John Rose, the firm’s chief executive until 2011, who is facing calls from Labour to be stripped of his knighthood after the bribery settlement.
Documents from a 2004 court case show how Rolls-Royce, in alliance with other multinationals, exerted pressure on the government to water down proposals that were intended to combat bribery.
The documents detail how Rolls-Royce and the other multinationals objected to the proposals and began privately to lobby against them.
Minutes of a meeting in July 2004 show that Rolls-Royce told civil servants it refused to disclose any details of its middlemen to the government as they saw these arrangements as strictly private.
At another meeting the following month, Rolls-Royce and the other firms again argued for secrecy on the grounds that they “operated in a particular environment” that “was very competitive with a small number of large companies”.
“These competitors would gain a major commercial advantage if they knew who [Rolls-Royce]’s intermediaries were. These details were very commercially sensitive. The network of agents/intermediaries was a valuable asset built up over a number of years and offered important commercial advantages such as being able to open doors … Even within the companies the names were restricted to a small number of senior employees,” the minutes record.
The then Labour government subsequently diluted the anti-bribery proposals. That decision was challenged in a legal action brought by the anti-corruption campaign group Corner House. As a result, the lobbying documents were released.
www.theguardian.com/business/2017/jan/19/rolls-royce-lobbied-ministers-to-weaken-anti-bribery-proposals