Prequel 1:
Marine Links Allen & Overy Snuff film Escrow to Bain & Company's Maddie McCann
Prequel 2:
Presidential Field Links BAE Bribes & DoJ Pride To Twin Towers Rocket-Fuel Bomb
"500 runners at Brussels Marathon Wednesday 26 September 2012 500 runners will take part to the Brussels Marathon on 7 October 2012 to support Missing Children Europe (a cloud-centric post Dutroux joint venture between Romney Bain associates and Allen & Overy in 1996) . They will wear on the back of their T-shirts the "Running for Missing Children Europe" logo. They will as well raise funds, asking their friends and professional contacts to sponsor their effort. 180 students of the Royal Military Academy, 80 students and teachers of the International School of Brussels, 40 staff members of the European Commission, with a special mention to the GD Justice and the GD Health and Consumers, many staff members of private companies among which Interparking, Delhaize, Bain & Company, Moët-Hennessy, Google, Guerlain, Orca Solutions, Allen & Overy ; not to forget the families and private people who signed up to support MCE. We warmly thank them and wish them all the best !!"
"When BAE Systems wanted a new way to quickly evaluate a suite of office and communications tools, it chose CSC’s CloudLab.
The service offers the British multinational company, which specializes in defense, security and aerospace, the flexible, fast hemselvand low-cost environment it needs for testing tools that employees and clients use to communicate, create and manage data.
Despite the attractive promise of significant cost and time savings, not all companies can leap straight into the cloud. BAE Systems is typical of a global business that is obliged to keep data within national borders and is composed of multiple individual companies around the world with long-term IT infrastructure arrangements already in place.
Many enterprises find tes in the same position as BAE Systems. Although global, these enterprises have individual territories that are run as separate businesses. Each has long-term IT infrastructure investments it needs to use before considering the time and cost savings available in the cloud.
Another pressing issue holding back full-scale cloud deployments at BAE Systems has been data security and management. For the defense contractor, this is not solely down to concerns over protection from cyber threats, but also legislation and contractual obligations. Many of the company’s major clients are governments that insist data only be hosted — and made available — within its borders.
However, this is not holding back the CIO’s office at BAE Systems from taking advantage of the fast setup and flexible billing offered by CSC CloudLab. Although full-scale deployment is not an immediate option, the service has been identified as a new means to test software before being launched to BAE Systems’ staff, partners and clients."
“The chair of Allen & Overy's lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) group has spoken out about the challenges the firm faces in jurisdictions where homosexuality is illegal.
A&O's LGBT group, A&Out, has members in the UK, as well as in Belgium, France, Russia, the United States and in Japan but there is no official representation in its Saudi Arabia or United Arab Emirates offices. In both these jurisdictions homosexuality is illegal [but buggering Missing Children Europe jockey boys is not].
The chair of A&Out, Ashley Young, who is based in Japan, told The Lawyer: "It's a challenging aspect. We make it clear that people can contact the A&Out committee if they need to. The question is how we extend the network into all the [geographical] areas we operate in a culturally sensitive way, where rules and regulations are different." The international dimension was the crux of the latest meeting of LGBT law firm network Interlaw, which was hosted by A&O.
A&Out, which was founded last year, has a four-pronged strategy which includes providing support to its members, business development, an intended community aspect oriented towards ProBono work and socializing.
This month's Interlaw event was followed by an A&Out party - the group's largest-ever. The networking event for A&O staff, clients and Interlaw members had 250 guests in attendance.
The network chose the 28 May to get together as it was the 40th birthday of Australian pop star Kylie Minogue. "She's very popular across the LGBT networks," said Young. The singer was celebrated by a pianist playing some of her hits.
The oversubscribed event was dominated by gay men, but making sure that there is more representation of lesbian women in the network is another significant hurdle Young argued: "It may be that there are fewer lesbian women than gay men in law firms but I don't think so. It's about engagement.
Anonymous | 30-May-2008 3:48 pm
Illustration
An oddly cheery picture this, for a story about horrible regimes where being gay is illegal. And between that and the smiley you've got on the workplace happiness story, the site looks like a raver's forum. Aciiiiiiid! …………..
Anonymous | 30-May-2008 4:49 pm
The middle east
The sad fact is that the LGBT issue is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the objectionable aspects of middle eastern countries that international law firms do business in.
For most you could add the massive gap between the wealthy elite and the dirt poor populace; while for many you could also include the general racism, widespread abuse of domestic staff, widespread human rights abuses by the police, and a general oppression of women that hides behind an interpretation of Islam. ”
"Investigation into BAE Systems
Allen & Overy has led the global defence of BAE Systems throughout the company's various corruption investigations around the world.
BAE Systems has been under investigation by the Serious Fraud Office, into the use of political corruption to help sell arms to Chile, Czech Republic, Romania, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Tanzania and Qatar. In response, BAE Systems' 2006 Corporate Responsibility Report states "We continue to reject these allegations...We take our obligations under the law extremely seriously and will continue to comply with all legal requirements around the world. In June 2007 Lord Woolf was selected to lead what the BBC described as an "independent review.... [an] ethics committee to look into how the defence giant conducts its arms deals." The report, Ethical business conduct in BAE Systems plc – the way forward, made 23 recommendations, measures which BAE has committed to implement. The finding stated that "in the past BAE did not pay sufficient attention to ethical standards in the way it conducted business" and was described by the BBC as "an embarrassing admission."
In September 2009, the Serious Fraud Office announced that it intended to prosecute BAE Systems for offences relating to overseas corruption. The Guardian claimed that a penalty "possibly of more than £500m" might be an acceptable settlement package. On 5 February 2010, BAE Systems agreed to pay £257m criminal fines to the US and £30m to the UK. The UK already massively benefited from £43 billion contract in tax receipts and jobs in the UK, and had dropped an anti-corruption investigation into the Al Yamamah contracts later taken up by US authorities. Crucially, under a plea bargain with the US Department of Justice BAE was sentenced in March 2010 by U.S. District Court Judge John D. Bates to pay a $400 million fine, one of the largest fines in the history of the DOJ. U.S. District Judge John Bates said the company's conduct involved "deception, duplicity and knowing violations of law, I think it's fair to say, on an enormous scale". BAE did not directly admit to bribery, and is thus not internationally blacklisted from future contracts. Some of the £30m penalty BAE will pay in fines to the UK will be paid ex gratia for the benefit of the people of Tanzania. On 2 March 2010, Campaign Against Arms Trade and The Corner House were successful in gaining a High Court injunction on the Serious Fraud Office's settlement with BAE. The High Court may order a full review of the settlement.``
"BAE's success runs on kosher rocket fuel By Alex Brummer, November 19, 2009 Amid all the gloom about Britain’s economic prospects, it is often forgotten that there are still areas where the nation excels. Thriving sectors include aerospace, pharmaceuticals and, more obviously, finance. As an aerospace/defence group struggling with a legacy of alleged corruption from Saudi Arabia to Tanzania, BAE (formerly British Aerospace and BAe Systems) often receives a bad press. It is presently under investigation by the Department of Justice (DoJ) in the US over controversial payments to Saudi middlemen. In Britain, the Serious Fraud Office is seeking a settlement with it over alleged payments to a number of countries from Eastern Europe to Africa"
More to follow.
Presidential Mandate
Abel Danger
It suddenly occurred to me, and it's a term (like "establishment") that has gone out of the lexicon, but the things you chronicle could be described as faustian (from Goethe's Faust)
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