Brits won't fight US over extradition

[Wynton]

An article in today's NY Times (link is http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/01/business/01gamble.html?ref=business) discussing the turmoil caused by the new law - states at one point:

"The British government has been sharply critical of the United States law. United States lawmakers said they passed the ban out of concern that the sites would increase gambling addiction and social problems.

“The industry has been very hard hit by the U.S. ban,” said Tessa Jowell, Britain’s culture minister, during a news conference on Tuesday at the Ascot Racecourse, where she met with delegates from 30 other countries to discuss the subject. The United States was invited but did not send a representative."

But later the article adds:

"While lobbying for regulation rather than prohibition of the industry, British officials said on Tuesday that they would not stand in the way of United States calls to extradite British citizens or residents. A draft communiqué from the conference said online gambling should not be allowed to become a source of crime or be used to finance criminality, that it should be fair to consumers and that children and problem gamblers should be protected."

I don't understand this posture. C'mon, Brits: fight us, please!

[Pog0]

Does this mean that Britain will arrest their citizens and send them to the US if the US requests it?

[Phil123]

It would still have to go to court and unless the offence is a crime in both countries which it isn't then the judge would simply throw it out.

[JOHNY CA$H]

I don't think this really changes anything.

[demon102]

Man y do our lawmakers gotta be such donks?

[Richas]

[ QUOTE ]
Does this mean that Britain will arrest their citizens and send them to the US if the US requests it?

[/ QUOTE ]

No - it means that journos just took the Reuters feed instead of looking at what the minister said. He was asked about extradition at the international conference on online gambling regulation and what he said was "People have to abide by the laws of particular countries," he said. "We will not acknowledge people who operate illegally."

He did not answer the question asked. What he said was that those registered in the UK would not be able to accept bets/deposits where those bets/deposits are illegal - ie the US. He did not say anything about extradition possibly as he is unlikely to know much about it being the Sports minister not the Attorney General.

To be extradited it has to be a crime in both jurisdictions. Nobody is going to be extradited from the UK for taking a bet from the US - and I'm prepared to put money on that with any US citizen who cares to test how sure I am.

[Wynton]

I don't expect to see the UK extradite anyone, really. But I have been somewhat dismayed that the UK does not seem to be objecting to the law more vigorously.

[Zetack]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Does this mean that Britain will arrest their citizens and send them to the US if the US requests it?

[/ QUOTE ]

No - it means that journos just took the Reuters feed instead of looking at what the minister said. He was asked about extradition at the international conference on online gambling regulation and what he said was "People have to abide by the laws of particular countries," he said. "We will not acknowledge people who operate illegally."

He did not answer the question asked. What he said was that those registered in the UK would not be able to accept bets/deposits where those bets/deposits are illegal - ie the US. He did not say anything about extradition possibly as he is unlikely to know much about it being the Sports minister not the Attorney General.

To be extradited it has to be a crime in both jurisdictions. Nobody is going to be extradited from the UK for taking a bet from the US - and I'm prepared to put money on that with any US citizen who cares to test how sure I am.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, it depends, I think, on how narrowly you are wording your bet. Will somebody be extradited from the UK solelyfor taking a bet from a US bettor? probably not, but the DOJ simply has to throw in a tax evasion charge, along with all the betting charges in order to be able to get extradition.

And here's the fun kicker, essentially, the US doesn't have to provide any evidence of the tax evasion to get the extradition.

Once on US soil, of course, the US can proceed with the taking illegal bets charges under the new federal gambling act (I forget the damn acronym)


Edit: Before the nits jump on me, technically, the US is not supposed to prosecute on any charges except the ones on which a suspect is extradited. It is not clear to me that the US abides by this rule, however.

[Wake up CALL]

[ QUOTE ]
It would still have to go to court and unless the offence is a crime in both countries which it isn't then the judge would simply throw it out.

[/ QUOTE ]

Hardly accurate, take for instance an age of consent issue. Very few laws in GB are identical to the US versions, according to you no one would ever be extradited.

[gonebroke]

The United Kingdom wants to become the online gambling capital of the world. They want the major players like PartyGaming, 888 Holdings PLC, Sportingbet PLC, etc. to physically move their servers and headquarters from their current location to the UK. To entice these companies to move to the UK, they are saying they will not stop extradition of any operator in the UK operating illegally by servicing Americans. This will make it impossible for PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker, Absolute Poker and all the other sites that service Americans to move to the UK.

The bottomline is, the public companies are losing their poker players because the pool of players is higher at the privately owned sites because they service Americans. If the privately owned sites are labelled as rogue or black market operators by the UK and the rest of Europe, that helps the publicly traded companies because Europeans will be encouraged to play at those public companies and not the privately owned ones.

[Richas]

[ QUOTE ]

Well, it depends, I think, on how narrowly you are wording your bet. Will somebody be extradited from the UK solelyfor taking a bet from a US bettor? probably not, but the DOJ simply has to throw in a tax evasion charge, along with all the betting charges in order to be able to get extradition.

And here's the fun kicker, essentially, the US doesn't have to provide any evidence of the tax evasion to get the extradition.

[/ QUOTE ]

LOL - given that all US citizens living in the UK are subject to US tax and shall we say "many" are often less than forthcoming with their affairs to the IRS and NONE have been extradited for it I'll let you have tax evasion in the bet too. No way Caborn was saying we would extradite (we won't) and no way tax evasion would hack it (hacking would). No UK judge would do it. It has to be a criminal not essentially civil matter. Not paying US taxes is not a crime in the UK. If the IRS want their money from US citizens they have to seize assets not get extradition. Don't let the fuss about the Enron 3 fool you, whilst the extradition treaty is very cosey it's not as easy as bundling guys in the back of a military jet and flying to Cuba.

[Zetack]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

Well, it depends, I think, on how narrowly you are wording your bet. Will somebody be extradited from the UK solelyfor taking a bet from a US bettor? probably not, but the DOJ simply has to throw in a tax evasion charge, along with all the betting charges in order to be able to get extradition.

And here's the fun kicker, essentially, the US doesn't have to provide any evidence of the tax evasion to get the extradition.

[/ QUOTE ]

LOL - given that all US citizens living in the UK are subject to US tax and shall we say "many" are often less than forthcoming with their affairs to the IRS and NONE have been extradited for it I'll let you have tax evasion in the bet too. No way Caborn was saying we would extradite (we won't) and no way tax evasion would hack it (hacking would). No UK judge would do it. It has to be a criminal not essentially civil matter. Not paying US taxes is not a crime in the UK. If the IRS want their money from US citizens they have to seize assets not get extradition. Don't let the fuss about the Enron 3 fool you, whilst the extradition treaty is very cosey it's not as easy as bundling guys in the back of a military jet and flying to Cuba.

[/ QUOTE ]

The bolded part above is simply nonsense if you mean to imply that it can't be the basis of an extradition. Look, if you are a South Carolina citizen and you kill another south carolina citizen, while both of you are in south carolina, what you have done is not a crime in the UK.

However, murder is a crime in the UK as it is the US. Similarly, tax evasion is a crime in the UK as it is the US. Thus you can be extradited for it.

Look at this link: Linky (http://www.omm.com/webdata/content/publications/client_alert_cOMMunicate_2006_10_06c.htm) about half way down under the heading, Who Can be Extradited.

Or look at this case:

Linky #2 (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2271383.html)

Clearly, a UK corporation or citizen could be extradited to the US for not paying taxes to the US. If you're point is that nobody will be, I suspect that if they have other reasons to try and extradite, for instance the "tax evader" is running a huge online gambling operation, that the chances go waaay up.


Edit: I also found this which seem particularly germane:

The UK government has indicated that extradition would only be considered if conduct is illegal in both the UK and America. But some industry watchers noted that the the indictment against BetOnSports includes allegations of tax evasion, which leaves open the prospect of an extradition of a UK gambling executive based on tax-related charges.

[MiltonFriedman]

It looks like it may get kind of crowded in Antigua or Costa Rica if extradition is as simple from the UK as this link says.

Thanks for the update.

[davmcg]

Hopefully it's ok to post this as the site it came from allows you to email its content.

"Executives of non-US companies can no longer ignore or avoid US criminal laws when managing their potential liabilities. Even business activities that take place completely outside the US may still fall foul of US criminal laws, for example, US antitrust laws against price-fixing and cartel agreements, and federal criminal statutes proscribing fraud and internet gambling. The US Department of Justice has aggressively pursued the extradition of foreign nationals who allegedly breach US criminal laws. Relatively new treaties between several EU member states and the US, which make the extradition process easier, have further fuelled the risk of extradition. The recent decisions in the Norris and NatWest Three cases illustrate the hazards.

The Norris and NatWest Three case

In the Norris and NatWest Three cases, English courts granted the extradition of UK citizens accused, respectively, of breaching US price-fixing and criminal wire fraud laws. Particularly noteworthy in the Norris case was the magistrates court's willingness to extradite for alleged breaches of US laws even though price-fixing was not a crime in the UK at the time the offending conduct took place. Traditionally, extradition has been allowed only for offences deemed criminal under the laws of both countries.

The 2003 UK-US Extradition Treaty relaxed the definition of "dual-criminality" to mean that an offence is extraditable if the conduct of the defendant would amount to an offence punishable by more than one year in prison in both countries, regardless of what the offence is called. Thus, the treaty provides that the "offence shall be an extraditable offence … whether or not the laws in the [r]equesting and [r]equested [s]tates place the offence within the same category of offences or describe the offence by the same terminology." This conduct-based approach gives the courts the flexibility to define an extraditable offence.

This new treaty was also designed to ease the procedural burden of extradition. Both countries sought to achieve this goal by lowering the evidentiary requirements for extradition requests. In particular, the US no longer has to provide evidence to support a prima facie case. It only needs to provide a copy of the arrest warrant and the charging document. English courts were similarly willing to extradite British citizens in the NatWest Three case even though the victim in that case was a British bank. The fact that UK authorities decided not to prosecute was not a valid defence against the extradition. In fact, the court in the NatWest Three case noted that this was not an exceptional circumstance and the case was "perfectly properly triable" in the US.

The UK is not the only country that has an extradition treaty with the US that contains the more relaxed dual-criminality provision: France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain and Switzerland have treaties with the US providing for extradition under a dual-criminality standard. Although the UK-US treaty is one of the more liberal agreements, executives from these other European countries should be aware of their risks of prosecution in the US for conduct that occurs outside the country.

The DoJ's aggressive approach

The new UK-US extradition treaty provisions have drastically expanded the scope of extraditable offences, including so-called white-collar crimes — a point that has not been lost on the US Department of Justice. The DoJ has been particularly active in seeking to extradite individuals accused of price-fixing and cartel agreements, which are breaches of US criminal laws but may not necessarily breach the criminal laws of other countries. Even when the alleged price-fixing and/or cartel behaviour takes place completely outside the US territory, under the Foreign Trade Antitrust Improvements Act of 1982 the US will apply its antitrust laws extraterritorially if the price-fixing had "a direct, substantial and reasonably foreseeable effect" on sales in the US or on exports to the US. Typically, that means that the alleged price-fixing had the purpose or foreseeable effect of raising prices paid by purchasers in the US. For example, although the alleged price-fixing cartel in Norris was organised in the UK with other European companies, the DoJ brought a criminal action against Norris under the US antitrust laws because Norris' company held a dominant market share in the US.

This extraterritorial reach of US antitrust laws becomes much more of an immediate concern to individual, non-US executives when they consider the DoJ's emphasis on individual accountability. The DoJ has repeatedly announced its determination to enforce US antitrust laws regardless of the nationality of the alleged offenders. Since 2001, nearly a quarter of the individual defendants in antitrust cases brought by the DoJ have been non-US nationals and roughly half the corporate defendants were non-US companies. Several non-US executives have served prison sentences in the US for price-fixing. With its recent successes in the Norris and NatWest Three cases, it is likely that the DoJ will continue to expand its extradition requests to other foreign criminal activities that fall under US jurisdiction. In a recent indictment involving a conspiracy charge under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organisations Act, which included as a defendant a British executive of an online gambling company, BetonSports plc, the DoJ announced that it would seek extradition of all defendants to St Louis, Missouri for prosecution. The British executive, David Carruthers, however, was arrested while changing planes at Dallas/Fort Worth airport on a trip from London to Costa Rica and no extradition was necessary.

Carruthers' airport arrest raised another important consideration for non-US executives in relation to international travel. Once the DoJ obtains an arrest warrant, its existence will be transmitted to all US border-crossing sites. A non-US executive subject to such a warrant will not be able to enter the US without being arrested. Even if the executive stays outside the US, he will still be at risk. The DoJ places alleged antitrust defendants on Interpol's red notice pending their arrest. This program works as an international "wanted" list of criminal fugitives, providing any of the member countries (including the US) with the authority to arrest listed fugitives if they are found inside that country's borders. Because airlines cross check passenger lists with Interpol's red notice, non-US executives accused of US criminal offences are at great risk of detention while travelling in Interpol signatory countries. Non-US nationals living in countries with less stringent or no extradition treaties with the US are, therefore, still at risk if and when they seek to cross international borders."

[Wynton]

Interesting article, but I find it raises more questions than answers. It says

[ QUOTE ]
Traditionally, extradition has been allowed only for offences deemed criminal under the laws of both countries.

The 2003 UK-US Extradition Treaty relaxed the definition of "dual-criminality" to mean that an offence is extraditable if the conduct of the defendant would amount to an offence punishable by more than one year in prison in both countries, regardless of what the offence is called. Thus, the treaty provides that the "offence shall be an extraditable offence … whether or not the laws in the [r]equesting and [r]equested [s]tates place the offence within the same category of offences or describe the offence by the same terminology." This conduct-based approach gives the courts the flexibility to define an extraditable offence.

[/ QUOTE ]

I've never researched extradition laws (though I am increasingly tempted), but this change seems odd to me. I always assumed that extraditable offenses were determined by the conduct, rather than the terminology. Indeed, a contrary approach would be silly. It's hard for me to see - based on the article alone - how the law really changed in a meaningful way.

I may have to break down and actually read the damn laws myself.