Extradition: UK Law and Practice (Extradition Law Committee Report)

Lord James of Blackheath Excerpts

Wednesday 16th September 2015 Grand Committee

[Lord James of Blackheath (Con)]

My Lords, I am deeply grateful for the opportunity to speak in the gap; I know that I have only four minutes, so I will go rather quickly. Several issues are not addressed by the final conclusions of this committee, which carry risks for people in the future, and I would not want them to go down the same path and experience what I have suffered. This is my story.

On 31 December 2000 I completed the process for the recovery and survival of Lloyd’s of London, the insurance market. I had been chairman of the audit committee of Lloyd’s of London for eight years and chairman of the special committee created to rescue Lloyd’s, the Equitas committee. As such I signed all the audit certificates for Lloyd’s of London for the whole of those eight years. When we filed it, it depended on the collection of $3 billion from the American investors still to be achieved. We could not start that process until we had clearance in England. We got the clearance of the British courts on 31 December, and we were in business. Immediately, I was served with a writ by the Americans claiming that I had signed a false audit certificate for Lloyd’s of London, on the grounds that this should have been a Chapter 11 case —which of course does not exist in British law—that they were going to proceed against me, and that this, on proof, would involve me serving a 24-year sentence in the state pen. At the age of 63 that could have been difficult.

I started to look for help and assistance from the British Government and legal sources on this, and was told, “You can’t have any. It’s a civil action and we don’t do it—civil actions can’t be subject to extradition, they’re wasting their time, they can’t extradite you on this case, and you haven’t got any claim on us for support”. So I had to go back to the drawing board on this with the Americans to decide what to do. We finally agreed that we would have neutral ground—a meeting in Toronto to decide what to do, where I could not be arrested. So we went to Toronto, at my expense, and had a meeting on this. Eventually they told me that they would drop the charge of failing to go into Chapter 11 on the grounds that that was a civil case and there was no Chapter 11 in Britain, but that they would not drop the charge of signing a false audit certificate and would have a trial on that point alone. Then they said, “Look, we know you’re not going to stand trial here because we’ve come over here and we’ve given you safe conduct on the basis that you’ll come here for this. We’ll try you in London”. I said, “You’re an American Government—you can’t try me in London!”. “Yes, we can”, they said. “We’ll try you in the American Embassy in Grosvenor Square”. Indeed they did. They set me up with a trial in Grosvenor Square, and I seriously contest the legality of a British citizen being tried in Grosvenor Square by an American Government on any charge at all. That should be precluded in any circumstances.

The second thing was that we went on trial; it finally took place in May 2001. They set up a proper court, making the room look like a court, with the eagle and the American flag, and they got teams of lawyers and judges over, and I stood trial for nine days, during which I was the only witness, and I never came out of the witness box for nine whole days. At the end of that time, thank God, the judge decided that of course I had not signed a false audit certificate, because I had legitimately relied on Section 8(3)(c) of the Insolvency Act 1986, and that Lloyd’s of London was governed by British and not American law. I was not only clear of the prison sentence but clear to go and get my $3 billion from the American citizens, which I did.

Three points of principle are covered here. First, there must be no question of any extradition in a civil action. The action was brought by the American investors, not by the American department that investigates fraud, which should completely preclude any such proceedings. Secondly, no Brit should be tried, as an alternative to extradition, in a British kangaroo court set up in the American embassy, however good the sandwiches they serve. Thirdly, you simply cannot allow American citizens to initiate action which privately leads to extradition proceedings.