NatWest Three: The long arm of US justice

"Guilty, your honour." The phrase uttered in a Houston courtroom this week by each of the three former bankers that have come to be known as the NatWest Three brought their long-running legal battle with the US government within a whisker of conclusion. All that is left is for the judge overseeing the case to approve the terms of the agreement. If he does so, Giles Darby, Gary Mulgrew and David Berm-ingham will each serve 37 months in prison and return the 7.3m they admitted to defrauding from NatWest bank now owned by Royal Bank of Scotland in a deal facilitated by the former chief financial officer of Enron.

It would be an ignominious end for the millionaire bankers who for the last 16 months have been forced to stay in Houston, playing kickabout football in city parks and tagged with electronic ankle bracelets. Yet they are not alone. Rather, they are but a few high-profile names in a growing list of British citizens caught up in a widening legal crusade led by the US government against white-collar wrongdoers the world over.

Critics argue that the UK Government in particular has left British businessmen inordinately vulnerable to prosecution by US authorities. "[The US government] has always liked the long reach, the difference now is that they have had an entirely helping hand from the UK Government," said a spokesman for the business lobby group CBI in reference to the signing of a 2003 extradition treaty that greatly reduced the legal requirements for the US authorities to extract UK offenders. "One of the main jobs of any government is protecting its citizens. The US does it. We don't."

The Act, crafted and signed in the wake of the 11 September attacks, was originally intended to aid the anti-terrorism effort. It has been used to great effect, however, to nab executives who may have crossed US law even in the most tenuous fashion.

Others argue that the pushing of jurisdictional boundaries ever outward is an entirely appropriate response to an economic environment that is every day more globalised. "As trade becomes more international, it is more easy to defraud someone in one jurisdiction from another, so governments are doing more to make sure that the smart crooks don't get away with it, and the dumb ones get caught," said a lawyer involved in several US extradition cases. "Having a policy of criminal enforcement for the global economy is something that any government would defend."

The US is far and away the leader of the trend, and it has accelerated its efforts in the second term of President George Bush's presidency. "I am often asked 'why? Isn't there enough going on in the US?' and I think the answer is that the administration thinks it is important and in the nation's best interests that we should spread democracy," said Douglas McNabb, a Texan lawyer specialising in international extradition and who appeared as an expert witness for the defence as the NatWest Three fought their transfer to the US. "If you are going to spread democracy, then you have got to eliminate corruption."

Several UK businessmen, and the businesses they run, have been caught in the net. Ian Norris, accused by US authorities of running a cartel while he was the chief executive of Morgan Crucible, will take his fight against an extradition order to the House of Lords in January. BAE Systems, meanwhile, is co-operating with a US Department of Justice investigation into the 40bn Al-Yamamah arms deal. The Serious Fraud Office dropped its investigation into alleged kickbacks made by BAE to senior Saudi officials in order to secure the contract this year.

Yet the US authorities soon opened their own inquiry into the deal. The US interest in a deal struck more than 20 years ago between the UK government, BAE Systems and Saudi Arabia seems tenuous at best. Yet it is typical of the fervency with which US authorities are pursuing corporate wrongdoing that even has the slightest hint of US involvement or implications. In the BAE case, the DoJ deemed its investigation appropriate due to the possible involvement of a US bank in processing the alleged kickbacks.

Mr McNabb said there had been an increased use of the long-standing Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which makes paying bribes in another country illegal under US law. (This is one line of inquiry being pursued by American authorities in the BAE case). And the US Treasury is ratcheting up sanctions against financial firms that do business with governments and organisations deemed corrupt or enemies of America "throwing together transnational financial crime with terrorism because it is easier to get done what they want to get done", Mr McNabb says. Indeed, it was just such logic that led the US to lean on several international banks, including Barclays and Royal Bank of Scotland, to stop acting on behalf of customers with interests in the country.

Meanwhile, a historical quirk of US anti-fraud legislation has also come in useful. In order to prosecute offences that might otherwise only be matters for the individual states, federal agencies use the laws of mail fraud and, nowadays, wire fraud, which prohibit deceptive schemes being executed through the post, over the phone, fax or email. The NatWest Three admitted a single count of wire fraud, related to the email of financial documents between them.

In the modern world of global finance, this is a big weapon for the US, says Mr McNabb. "A transaction between bankers in London and Berlin may ping through a bank in New York, but even touching the US system is deemed to give sufficient jurisdiction and enough to place the bankers into extradition proceedings."

The CBI has called for the reinstatement of the extradition regime prior to 2003, under which US authorities were required to provide prima facie evidence before being allowed to extradite UK citizens.

Cases in the pipeline

Ian Norris, former chief executive, Morgan Crucible

The first Briton threatened with extradition to America after the UK approved an Extradition Act set up to help catch terrorismsuspects, the US Department of Justice charged him with running a cartel on carbon-based products. Mr Norris, in ill health, continues to fight the effort. He will take his case to the Hose of Lords inJanuary.

David Carruthers,former chief executive, BetonSports.com

Arrested on a layover in Dallas in July last year, Mr Carruthers is facing charges of money laundering, racketeering and mail fraud. The online gambling company pleaded guilty to a raft of charges earlier this year and agreed to provideevidence against Mr Carruthers and Gary Kaplan, the company's founder, who was arrested in the Dominican Republic.

Jeremy Crook, former vice-president, Peregrine Systems

A former head of European sales at the US software firm, the unfortunately named Mr Crook turned himself in earlier this year. He faced extradition on charges over his role in an alleged accounting fraud to cover up losses at Peregrine. He is now back in the UK while the DoJ builds its case against him and several other executives. He faces up to 76 years in jail.

BAE Systems

After the Serious Fraud Office abruptly ended its long-running inquiry into corruption related to the 40bn Al-Yamamah arms deal last year, the DoJ opened its own inquiry, which is continuing.