This London Daily Telegraph article reports that the Enron-related case of the NatWest Three (previous posts here) — the three former London-based National Westminster Bank PLC bankers who are charged in Houston with bilking their former employer of $7.3 million in one of the schemes allegedly engineered by former Enron CFO Andrew Fastow and his right hand man, Michael Kopper — is back in the news this week. The three former bankers are requesting that the High Court certify that their fight against extradition to face criminal prosecution in Houston raises issues of general public importance and, thus, should be taken up by the U.K.’s highest court.
As noted in the previous posts on the case, the NatWest Three case is being watched closely by the UK business and legal communities, which are alarmed at powers given to United States prosecutors under the 2003 Extradition Act. Under the treaty signed by then UK Home Secretary David Blunkett, the United States government can seek extradition of UK citizens without providing prima facie evidence in the UK that a crime has been committed by the UK citizens in the United States. However, the UK has no such reciprocal power because the US Congress still has not ratified the treaty. Moreover, the use of the treaty to target business executives for extradition is controversial because the treaty was proposed and enacted in the UK in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, at which time it was promoted as necessary to make it easier to extradite terrorists.
Recent evidence has come to light that appears to buttress the NatWest Three’s appeal. This earlier Telegraph article reports on discovery of a letter showing that the UK Home Office and its legal team have differing views on where court cases should be heard when more than one country is involved. In the letter, Home Office minister Andy Burnham strongly supported European Union guidelines that, where possible, “a prosecution should take place in the jurisdiction where the majority of the criminality occurred or where the majority of the loss was sustained.” However, in the case of the NatWest Three, the UK government lawyers have been taking a contrary position in urging the UK courts to allow extradition of the three former bankers to Houston. Another recent Telegraph article reports that UK public opinion appears to be solidly in support of the NatWest Three’s position in the extradition dispute.