5 Days: A little bridge over troubled waters and silver girl can set you free; but not for long...make the right choice

The United Kingdom’s (“UK”) Bribery Act 2010 (the “Act”) will come into force on 1 July 2011. It radically overhauls the UK's outdated and criticised anti-corruption laws and introduces a new, clearer regime for tackling bribery that will apply to all businesses based or operating in the UK. This article summarises the offences under the Act and the potential impact on Middle East companies operating in the UK and UK companies operating in the Middle East.

Summary of the offences
The Act sets out offences of bribing, being bribed and bribing a foreign public official (“FPO”). These offences will only be committed by an individual or commercial organisation if the relevant conduct (i) takes place within the UK or (ii) takes place outside the UK and the individual or company has a "close connection" with the UK (e.g. the individual is a British citizen or resident or the company is incorporated in the UK).
The Act also introduces a new corporate offence of failing to prevent bribery. The offence has wide reach and may catch companies incorporated outside the UK which have business operations or a subsidiary located in the UK.

Penalties include imprisonment or a fine or both. Businesses also risk being debarred from competing for public contracts in the UK.

6 Days: Solutions at hand are often lost to those who wait.

EIB has a zero tolerance policy to fraud and corruption in the projects it finances, as stated in ElB's Anti-Fraud Policy and confirmed by the Board in April 2008.

Misleading can cost you dearly!!!

The U.S. Supreme Court left intact Jeffrey Skilling’s conviction for leading the Enron Corp. accounting fraud, refusing to grant a second hearing to the imprisoned former chief executive officer.

Today’s rebuff leaves Skilling with nothing to show for his victory at the Supreme Court in 2010, when the justices said prosecutors used an improper legal theory to convict him. A federal appeals court then reaffirmed his 19-count conviction, saying the verdict would have been the same regardless.

Skilling is serving a 24-year sentence in a federal prison in Colorado after he and former Enron Chairman Kenneth Lay were found guilty of deceiving investors about the company’s true financial condition. Lay died in 2006.

7 Days: So many problems can disappear with a little fair & reasonable behavior

Let's imagine a little country A that had worked hard for big country B in a joint venture.  The little country was working a villa that was valued at say $14.85 mln and the little country's share was $3.95 mln.  Then a dispute arose for any number of reasons sending the little country off to pursue all sorts of current and future bi-lateral and multi-lateral legal & political avenues to correct how it felt it had been wronged -- all to the embarrassment and cost really of big country B.

All little country A ever wanted was what its fair share, for its hard work had always been $3.95 mln.

The funny thing about this dispute is that it could be solved simply by selling the venture that A & B began.  Little country A would make certain that big country B got its fair share of the proceeds of selling their venture (because honesty, transparency and trust are very important to little country A).

And then little country A would go off with its hard worked for stake of $3.95 mln and all of the bi-lateral and multi-lateral efforts would be withdrawn -- quietly, responsibly and leave big country B looking like the big dog on the block not to be messed with.

Everyone would live happily ever after.

Boehner is apparently on an incentive scheme from Canadian Oil sands companies -- 'cause he doesn't give a dam about Americans or their Health

U.S. House Speaker John Boehner will make a new attempt to force approval of the stalled Keystone XL oil pipeline as part of legislation for another 90-day extension of federal road, bridge and transit construction funding, Republican aides said on Friday.

By seeking a second short-term funding extension, the plan aims to put the Canada-to-Texas pipeline and expanded drilling rights back at the top of the House agenda without the struggles that the House has endured in trying to pass a longer-term, more expensive transport bill.

people and corporations do respond to embarrassment. more to follow!!!

The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) describes itself as a nonpartisan champion of free markets. But if you spend some time at an ALEC conference you will be hard-pressed to find many Democrats. 

And the council doesn’t really support free markets, either. It supports the companies that fund it. This is an important distinction, because the corporations that donate to ALEC aren’t doing so to protect markets. 

They’re protecting favored tax treatments and pushing regulations that lock in their market positions. As best as we were able to determine in reporting our piece last year, corporations propose bills at the state level and then push them up to ALEC, which has both corporate and legislative members. ALEC pushes the legislative members to the foreground, stamps the bills as “model legislation,” and then the corporations push them back out to other state legislatures. 

So ALEC is not what it says it is. If the American Legislative Exchange Council operated with complete openness, it couldn’t operate at all. ALEC has attracted a wide and wealthy range of supporters precisely because it does its real work in a black box. Membership lists are secret. The origins of the model bills are secret. Deliberations and votes on model bills are secret. The model bills themselves are secret. The council has designed its entire structure to disguise industry-backed legislation as grassroots work from state legislators. If this becomes clear to everyone, there’s no reason for corporations to use it. And that is exactly what has been happening.

Since last year, the National Urban League, Common Cause, and ColorOfChange have been pressuring companies to drop their membership in ALEC. The council’s library of model bills includes legislation that tightens voter identification requirements, making it harder for students, the elderly, and the poor to vote. Since the death of Trayvon Martin last month, minority advocacy groups have made another complaint against ALEC: In 2005, the council turned Florida’s Castle Doctrine bill into model legislation (PDF). The doctrine allows the use of deadly force in a public place if someone “believes it is necessary to prevent death or great bodily harm,” and removes the duty to flee a confrontation.

This week, ColorOfChange announced that Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, and the personal financial software maker Intuit, among several other brand-name companies, have declined to renew their memberships with ALEC. McDonald’s confirmed for Bloomberg Businessweek that it left ALEC in March, and elaborated only that it was a “business decision.” Intuit confirmed as well, but explained that the decision had come out of its normal budgeting process in 2011. Coca-Cola has yet to respond to a request for comment.

In July 2011, the Center for Media and Democracy, a progressive activist group, published ALEC’s full catalog of legislation. Coca-Cola and McDonald’s were then no longer just members of a nonpartisan organization that championed free markets; they ran the reputational risk of endorsing everything that ALEC does.

It’s hard to come up with a reason the council keeps its model legislation secret other than to avoid embarrassing incongruities for its corporate members. If the council’s model bills promote free markets, why not proudly display them? If private and public members working together produce better solutions, why not open up their deliberations to the public, or at least reveal their names? The simplest answer is the most likely: Some of what ALEC does looks bad for its members. McDonald’s, in its response to an e-mail about ALEC, wasn’t obfuscating. Dumping the council was, in fact, a “business decision.”

But people and corporations do respond to embarrassment. Embarrassment is impossible without disclosure. ALEC should be free to advocate for whatever it likes, and people should be free to support the candidate who pleases them. In ALEC’s case, it’s been interesting to watch embarrassment do its work once disclosure showed up. It might be a rule for campaign and super PAC contributions as well: You can do whatever you like, as long as you are honest about it through transparent disclosure.

What could Mitt not want us to see?

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney today requested a six-month extension to file his 2011 federal income taxes, said Andrea Saul, his campaign spokeswoman. Saul said he would file his taxes and release the return before the Nov. 6 general election.