Charles Falconer
2/28/2010
The UK lags well behind other European countries and the US when it comes to bringing prosecutions for bribery, writes Falconer. This is largely due to outdated laws that leave the Serious Fraud Office ill-equipped to fight corruption, especially when it involves UK companies trading outside the UK. For this reason, Falconer says it is vital that the Bribery Bill makes it through parliament before the general election. Failure to do this could lead other nations to doubt that the UK is serious about tackling the problem.
The writer is the former Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice.
Google has reacted to accusations that its internet searches produce results that can be unfair to rival firms by saying that they are “neutral both in appearance and fact”. Caldwell says there would only be a need for Google to declare its neutrality if the company had no real competition. With Google, people either think that there is a big problem and the company is enjoying a monopoly or that there is no problem at all. Google tends to cast attempts to regulate it as assaults on fundamental freedoms, but Caldwell says such a view smacks of 1990s utopianism and needs to be re-examined.
