Rogues gallery

[james armstrong]

>From yesterday's Guardian letters:



 2 Aug 2011.

Readers will have noted on page eleven  “British Gas fined £2.5million by Ofgem” 

 After some digging I
have uncovered ten fines of over £1million imposed  in 2010 by the Financial Services Authority.  On 17
 April  2010 Guardian reported
a fine of £39million imposed on eight recruitment agencies by the Office of
Fair Trading. 

  OFT have imposed many fines of over
£1million  including £63million  on named retailers and lately a fine of  £129million on 103 named construction
companies for rigging bids for public contracts.  

BBC news on 1 April this year reported a fine in Europe
on Proctor and Gamble and on Lever Brothers  of  240million
euros. On  4th June 2010 Daily
Telegraph reported a fine on  Ernst and
Young who audit some of the  FT 100 firms
, by the  Accountancy  Association,  of 
£500,000.

Fines of a mind blowing size were imposed by Securities and
Exchange Authority in USA,
a couple of over $2billion each, both  on
Citigroup.

American Express,  Bank of America and  Walmart are just  some of the well known companies  who appear on the   SEA  list of million dollar offenders. At random ,
a   Canadian court fined Imperial Tobacco and
Rothmans $1.1billion .

 

Unlike the names of 
peers and M.P.s who have fiddled their expenses (one for £14,000) and
been sent to jail, none of these offences  would appear in the files  Criminal Records Office. Their offences  were not crimes, ’merely’ fraud, breaches of
regulations and lack of disclosure. 

 

Ex directors of some of these  non criminal corporations have been appointed
by HM Treasury and recruited by  the Bank
of England  and currently  serve on the Monetary Policy Committee. 

 

At the  recent hearing
of News International executives  by the
Culture Committee of the House of Commons I heard no mention of the  $300million fine by Securities and
Exchange  on a subsidiary of News
Corporation in USA.
 

 

Isn’t it time for  Companies House in London  to set up a Corporate  Rogues Office which the public can consult ? 

James Armstrong
(long list of £m,  $m and
euro m  fines available) 


 		 	   		  
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