Morgan Crucible Co. Chief Executive Officer Ian Norris extradition NO

Former Morgan Crucible Co. Chief Executive Officer Ian Norris, who is accused by U.S. prosecutors of price-fixing, won a ruling from the U.K.'s highest court that hinders attempts to extradite him for a trial in Pennsylvania. Norris, 65, has been charged in the U.S. with conspiring with other executives to rig the price of carbon products, including brushes, in the 1990s and trying to obstruct an ensuing investigation. The House of Lords today ruled he couldn't be extradited on the antitrust claims because price-fixing wasn't a crime in the U.K. at the time of the alleged misconduct. ``Mere price fixing was not at any time'' a criminal offense in the U.K. when the cartel operated, the House of Lords said in a ruling today. While Norris doesn't have to face U.S. antitrust charges, the Lords said he may be extradited over the obstruction of justice claim and sent the issue to a lower court for review. Britain's business community lobbied the U.K. to prevent the U.S. from using an extradition treaty to prosecute white collar criminals after three former bankers at Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc's Greenwich NatWest were extradited to Texas to face charges related to the collapse of Enron Corp. ``The House of Lords have signaled that the government should start to change its mind on extradition rules, particularly on America, which is very aggressive in terms of territorial reach,'' Mark Spragg, who represented the NatWest bankers, said in an interview today. His clients eventually pleaded guilty and were sentenced to 37 months in prison. While the U.K.'s Enterprise Act 2002 criminalized cartels, the law wasn't in force until after the alleged cartel activity had stopped in the Norris case.
The ruling is ``a huge defeat for the U.S. antitrust division,'' Larry Byrne, a U.S. lawyer for Norris, said today. ``The House of Lords has completely rejected the position of the'' U.S. Department of Justice. Following today's ruling, U.S. prosecutors who pursue British businessmen for antitrust violations must ensure the cartel was operating after the introduction of the Enterprise Act, said Tom Epps, a partner at Russell Jones & Walker. ``The business community needs to remain vigilant,'' Epps said. ``The Department of Justice will continue to flex its muscles in the U.K. by focusing on cartel offenses that have occurred post June 2003.''
Norris retired from Morgan Crucible in 2002 after battling prostate cancer. U.S. prosecutors claim he colluded with rivals to fix prices on carbon parts, to avoid undercutting each other on sales. The cartel, which originally operated in Europe, spread to the U.S. in 1989 and continued until 2000, according to a U.S. indictment.
Morgan Crucible, which was founded in 1856, sells ceramic and carbon parts for use in the steel-making industry. Current management has sought to expand the company into other markets such as aerospace, medical equipment and defense, CEO Mark Robertshaw said in an interview in December. A call to the Windsor, England-based company wasn't immediately answered. Morgan Crucible and its North Carolina subsidiary, Morganite Inc., agreed to pay a total of $11 million in fines to settle related antitrust charges in 2002. Norris wasn't covered by that agreement and has been fighting the charges since his arrest in London in January 2005. In a separate ruling today, the House of Lords applied the same principle to a U.K. antitrust case involving a group of generic drug-makers including Goldshield Group Plc for conspiring to defraud the National Health Service of 120 million pounds ($60 million) by fixing prices. The U.K.'s Serious Fraud Office claims that the cartel ran through 2000, prior to the Enterprise Act. The Lords said prosecutors must amend the charges if they want to continue with the case. Keith Hellawell, chairman of Goldshield said in a statement that ``we very much hope'' this will lead to the SFO dropping the charges. SFO spokesman David Jones said he wasn't immediately able to comment.