NatWest Three

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The NatWest Three, also known as the Enron Three, are three British businessmen - Giles Darby, David Bermingham and Gary Mulgrew - who were extradited to the United States on July 13, 2006 on charges relating^[1] to a transaction with Enron Corporation in 2000 when they were working for the City of London firm Greenwich NatWest.

1 The alleged crime
2 Timeline of legal proceedings
3 Campaign of support in Britain
4 References
5 See also
6 External links

[edit] The alleged crime

At the time of the alleged crime the Three were working for Greenwich NatWest, then a unit of NatWest bank. The Three allegedly engaged in a corrupt deal with Andrew Fastow, CFO of Enron, whereby they would persuade Greenwich NatWest to sell its stake in a Cayman Islands investment company at a fraction of its real market value to a small company controlled by Fastow. The stake was then sold to Enron at its true value, and the difference was split between Fastow, Fastow's assistant Michael Kopper, and the Three.

The three bankers allegedly netted £1.1m ($2.3m) each, while Fastow and Kopper made a considerably larger sum.^[2]

Some of the most damning evidence against the Three comes from a presentation allegedly made by the Three to Fastow which included the words:

"Problem is that it is too obvious (to both Enron and LPs) what is happening (ie, robbery of LPs), so probably not attractive. Also no certainty of making money ..."

Prosecutors allege that the use of the word "robbery" shows that the Three knew that what they were planning to do was a crime. ^[3]

[edit] Timeline of legal proceedings

[edit] Issue of arrest warrants and indictment

U.S. arrest warrants for the Three were issued in June 2002, and they were indicted by a grand jury in Houston, Texas in September of the same year on seven counts of wire fraud.^[4]. The warrants were among the first issued by Enron prosecutors and may have been aimed at inducing the Three into a plea bargain whereby they would testify against Kopper and Fastow (seen as more important prosecution targets) in exchange for reduced sentences ^[5]. However, during the long delay caused by the decision of the Three to fight extradition Kopper and Fastow both pled guilty and entered into plea bargains themselves. Thus, in an ironic turn of events, Kopper and Fastow are likely to be the key prosecution witnesses aginst the Three.

[edit] Extradition to the United States

The Three were arrested in Britain on 23 April 2004 and extradition proceedings commenced in June of that year. ^[6] In September a judge ruled that extradition could proceed.

Extradition from the UK to the US is governed by the controversial Extradition Act 2003.

On 20 February 2006 the Natwest Three's appeal against the extradition was rejected by the High Court, and on 21 June 2006, the House of Lords threw out the appeal;^[7] on 27 June 2006 the three lost an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights. There were then rumours in the UK press that the British government would support their case but this was rejected by Attorney General Lord Goldsmith on July 7, 2006.^[8]

[edit] Court proceedings in the United States

On July 13, 2006 the Three arrived in Houston and taken to the Federal Detention Center there ^[9]. The next day they were released into the custody of their attorney and ordered to wear electronic monitoring devices. On July 21 a judge ruled that the Three could go free on bond but could not leave the Houston area, could not meet with each other without their lawyers present and must raise between $80,000 and $150,000 by the end of the month ^[10]. US immigration services gave them permission to seek work in the US for a period of one year: however the judge did not give them permission to travel throughout the US in order to seek work.^[11]

On August 2, 2006 the trial date was delayed indefinitely in order to allow two of the Three to secure legal representation ^[12].

On August 9, 2006 the legal situation of the Three was complicated by subpoenas served on them in an Enron-related civil suit against Royal Bank of Canada ^[13].

On August 12, 2006 all three informed the judge that they had retained attorneys. ^[14].

On September 6, 2006, the trial date was set for September 4, 2007. Until that time the Three will be required to wear monitoring devices and cannot leave the Houston area. ^[15]

[edit] Campaign of support in Britain

The trio have been aided by a high profile campaign led by the The Daily Telegraph newspaper, with the unpaid support of two London-based public relations firms,^[16]. The campaign has focused on three points:-

The alleged crime was allegedly committed by British citizens living in Britain against a British company based in London, the nation's capital city. Therefore, any resulting criminal case fell under British legal and territorial jurisdiction^{[citation needed]} and should be tried by a British court. However, despite opportunities to prosecute the three men, the British judicial system decided there was no case to answer, so the men were de facto innocent in the eyes of British law.^{[citation needed]} Therefore, it was contended that no crime was ever committed and there were no grounds for extradition.^{[citation needed]} The decision by American prosecutors to proceed against the Three was seen by many as ignoring British jurisdiction in the case.^{[citation needed]} This caused considerable resentment among many British people.^{[citation needed]} It was viewed as yet another example of the supposedly one-sided nature of the "special relationship" between the USA and UK.^{[citation needed]}

If extradited, the case could take years to come to trial (in fact trial is scheduled to begin in September 2007). The three accused men would be forced to remain in the USA, far away from their families in the UK. Additionally, whilst on bail they would be unable to find gainful employment in order to fund a legal defence against the charges brought against them (in fact the Three are permitted to seek employment in the US provided they remain in Houston^[17])

The extradition arrangements between the U.S. and the UK are highly unequal. It is comparatively easy to extradite British citizens to America. In contrast it is difficult to extradite Americans to Britain -- for example there are still PIRA members who fled to the USA in the 1980s after being accused of terrorist crimes who cannot be extradited. ^[18]

“

[PR experts involved with the case] believe that the main achievement of the campaign has been to highlight their side's view of the inequality of the extradition arrangements. But perhaps even more of an achievement is that the public perception of the three has been turned from that of apparently wealthy bankers, alleged to have been involved in an £11m fraud and attempting to escape justice, to deeply wronged men being ripped from the bosoms of their families, destined for servitude in a vile penitentiary.^[19]

”

There has been much criticism of the fact that the Americans do not have to produce a prima facie case - or even any "reasonable case"^[20] to extradite UK citizens, whereas there is no comparable facility to extradite U.S. citizens to the UK.

Despite this, the head of Britain's Serious Fraud Office has claimed that there would have been enough evidence to extradite the Three to the US even under the old extradition arrangements ^[21].

Supporters of the Three claim that when the extradition law was passed in the wake of September 11 the UK government stated that it was only to be used in the so-called war against terror and if the treaty was ratified by the US.^[22]. However, neither of these conditions was written into the text of the extradition law, and neither had been fulfilled in the case of the Three at the time of their extradition (the treaty was subsequently ratified by the US in September 2006).

In a highly unusual move, the Speaker of the (UK) House of Commons, Michael Martin, allowed an emergency debate, on 12 July 2006, on both the treaty and the 'Natwest Three' after a request by Liberal Democrat MP Nick Clegg. During the debate, news shocked the House that a former Royal Bank of Scotland executive and FBI prosecution witness Neil Coulbeck had been found dead, after apparently hanging himself. It had been suggested by friends and family that the FBI 'hounded' him.^[23] The FBI denied this, saying that it had interviewed Coulbeck only once, four years earlier ^[24]

Gary Mulgrew is the son of Trish Godman, a Member of the Scottish Parliament.