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WRT doing business in the UK. You need to understand that this is a highly unusual situation. Part of the UK Parliamentary system is that there are "Select Co

WRT doing business in the UK. You need to understand that this is a highly unusual situation. Part of the UK Parliamentary system is that there are "Select Committees"on MPs, whose job is to review and hold to account the performance of government bodies and departments. They may also review areas of national interest within their remit, and invite witnesses to give evidence to them. For example, there have been significant problems with a rail timetable change recently, and the Transport Select Committee invited the heads of various rail companies to give evidence. You don't not turn up - an invitation from a select committee to give evidence has the same sort of weight as a court summons to give evidence. So Zuck was invited to give evidence to the Digital Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee (DCMS), investigating the impact of Fake News on politics. Twice (at least). Both times he sent a minion. DCMS then set up a Grand Committee hearing, with parliamentarians from a bunch of other countries (Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, France, Ireland, Latvia, Singapore and UK), and invited Zuck. Again, no show. So basically, since Zuck gave a whole bunch of governments the finger, the Uk government used its powers to collect relevant evidence. I would suggest that unless you are a) the CEO of a Unicorn, or b) Currently suing a Unicorn and c) that Unicorn is giving the finger to a government You need have no fear of doing business in the UK

chrisseaton 8y ago
> an invitation from a select committee to give evidence has the same sort of weight as a court summons to give evidence It doesn't! As you say yourself, one is a summons, the other is nothing more than an invitation to attend.
- timthorn 8y ago
  From: https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201213/cmselect/cmliaisn/697/697we36.htm https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201213/cmselect/cmli...: "If a Select Committee wishes to require the attendance of a witness, an informal request is issued. If the witness is unwilling, a period of negotiation usually follows. If it is clear that the witness is not willing to attend, and the Committee wishes to insist, an order for attendance is made by the Committee, signed by the Chair, and then served upon the witness by the Serjeant at Arms or the Serjeant’s representative."
  - chrisseaton 8y ago
    People don’t think that ‘order’ actually has any effective legal power though. https://www.consoc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Select-Committees-and-Coercive-Powers-Clarity-or-Confusion.pdf https://www.consoc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Select-... https://www.google.co.uk/amp/www.theweek.co.uk/93679/can-mps-force-people-to-testify%3famp https://www.google.co.uk/amp/www.theweek.co.uk/93679/can-mps...
    - blibble 8y ago
      that may be the case, but snubbing reasonable requests from an institution with essentially unlimited power in its own domain is unlikely to end well for you if you want to remain operating there
- steve_gh 8y ago
  Strictly, you may be right - it is not a criminal offence to ignore an invitation form a select committee. I believe (but may be wrong), that the committee can request Parliament to consider the matter, and at that point the Sargent at Arms (who does have legal powers) can fetch you to appear at the bar (entrance to) the House of Commons chamber. Practically speaking, no-one in their right mind, based in the UK, ignores an invitation to attend a Select Committee hearing. Very bad form :-)
- undecisive 8y ago
  To summon = To request to appear; send for. Surely the only difference - from a UK perspective - is that one is a court, appointed (mumble mumble) by the Queen, and the other is the government, appointed (mumble mumble) by the Queen. So yes, if you've been summoned by the Queen's representatives to appear, and you refuse, that's a pretty big snub. Of course, with a court summons, there are well defined consequences - and everyone knows it - if you refuse to attend, because it's a common enough occurrence. I don't know what the consequences would be legally speaking if you were based in the UK and refused a select committee summons - I doubt it's a particularly common occurrence.
  - chrisseaton 8y ago
    > I don't know what the consequences would be legally speaking if you were based in the UK and refused a select committee summons - I doubt it's a particularly common occurrence. This is the problem - nobody knows what the consequence would be, so there really isn’t one. The response to ‘you must attend’, ‘or what?’ is ‘or we’re not sure - please just attend’.
- NeedMoreTea 8y ago
  I think you'll find under the British constitution, and according to Erskine May, the definitive guide to Parliamentary practice, that it does. "any act or omission which obstructs or impedes either House of Parliament in the performance of its functions, or which obstructs or impedes any Member or officer of such House in the discharge of his duty, or which has a tendency, directly or indirectly, to produce such results, may be treated as a contempt even though there is no precedent of the offence" The government itself was found in contempt of Parliament over Brexit just this week. As the linked article notes, applies just as much to refusing to appear before a Parliamentary committee. https://www.politicshome.com/news/uk/houses/commons/news/100317/explained-what-happens-if-government-found-contempt-parliament https://www.politicshome.com/news/uk/houses/commons/news/100...
  - chrisseaton 8y ago
    I think the consensus is that those powers are inoperable https://www.consoc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Select-Committees-and-Coercive-Powers-Clarity-or-Confusion.pdf https://www.consoc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Select-... https://www.google.co.uk/amp/www.theweek.co.uk/93679/can-mps-force-people-to-testify%3famp https://www.google.co.uk/amp/www.theweek.co.uk/93679/can-mps...
    - NeedMoreTea 8y ago
      It's unclear. Trouble is none of the powers seem to have been necessary in about a century, so it probably needs exploring in court. Or formalising powers in some new legislation, which will eventually result if people start to treat committee summons as optional. This is probably well overdue. :)
kodablah 8y ago
I can understand it's highly unusual. I don't have an absolute fear or no fear of doing business in the UK, it just ups my "riskometer" I mentioned. Surely it is clear that a vindictive government raiding a visitor and publishing confidential business documents should give one pause about the government's ideals? And I think we can make judgements about how decisions are reached instead of assuming that the exact steps that led to the decisions are the only reason they may go to such lengths. It is common for those dismissing chilling effects to say certain situations are special, but the effects are about ideals of the powerholders as much as their actions.
- soared 8y ago
  > vindictive government raiding What? OP literally just described how skipping a request for info is comparable to skipping a court summons in the US. If you skip a court summons 4 times, the government comes after you. How is this situation different? > publishing This certainly does raise questions. > government's ideals Investigating companies who might be implicit in crimes? (Gov is investigatng fake news, most of which is shared via facebook. Fb /probably/ didn't commit any crime, but they are closely involved and failing to cooperate raises red flags. Fake news isn't a crime, but there were questions of brexit advertising funds, election funds, etc.
  - tzs 8y ago
    > If you skip a court summons 4 times, the government comes after you. How is this situation different? They didn't come after Facebook to obtain the documents. They went after someone who was suing Facebook and who was visiting England, and threatened him with jail unless he stole Facebook documents for them (which he had restricted access to as part of the discovery processes of his lawsuit against Facebook).
    - steve_gh 8y ago
      They are making a point. If Zuck had given evidence it would be in the public domain. He didn't, they have gained access to the documents, and are putting the bits they believe relevant to their inquiry into the public domain.

chrisseaton 8y ago

> an invitation from a select committee to give evidence has the same sort of weight as a court summons to give evidence It doesn't! As you say yourself, one is a summons, the other is nothing more than an invitation to attend.

timthorn 8y ago
From: https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201213/cmselect/cmliaisn/697/697we36.htm https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201213/cmselect/cmli...: "If a Select Committee wishes to require the attendance of a witness, an informal request is issued. If the witness is unwilling, a period of negotiation usually follows. If it is clear that the witness is not willing to attend, and the Committee wishes to insist, an order for attendance is made by the Committee, signed by the Chair, and then served upon the witness by the Serjeant at Arms or the Serjeant’s representative."
- chrisseaton 8y ago
  People don’t think that ‘order’ actually has any effective legal power though. https://www.consoc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Select-Committees-and-Coercive-Powers-Clarity-or-Confusion.pdf https://www.consoc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Select-... https://www.google.co.uk/amp/www.theweek.co.uk/93679/can-mps-force-people-to-testify%3famp https://www.google.co.uk/amp/www.theweek.co.uk/93679/can-mps...
  - blibble 8y ago
    that may be the case, but snubbing reasonable requests from an institution with essentially unlimited power in its own domain is unlikely to end well for you if you want to remain operating there
steve_gh 8y ago
Strictly, you may be right - it is not a criminal offence to ignore an invitation form a select committee. I believe (but may be wrong), that the committee can request Parliament to consider the matter, and at that point the Sargent at Arms (who does have legal powers) can fetch you to appear at the bar (entrance to) the House of Commons chamber. Practically speaking, no-one in their right mind, based in the UK, ignores an invitation to attend a Select Committee hearing. Very bad form :-)
undecisive 8y ago
To summon = To request to appear; send for. Surely the only difference - from a UK perspective - is that one is a court, appointed (mumble mumble) by the Queen, and the other is the government, appointed (mumble mumble) by the Queen. So yes, if you've been summoned by the Queen's representatives to appear, and you refuse, that's a pretty big snub. Of course, with a court summons, there are well defined consequences - and everyone knows it - if you refuse to attend, because it's a common enough occurrence. I don't know what the consequences would be legally speaking if you were based in the UK and refused a select committee summons - I doubt it's a particularly common occurrence.
- chrisseaton 8y ago
  > I don't know what the consequences would be legally speaking if you were based in the UK and refused a select committee summons - I doubt it's a particularly common occurrence. This is the problem - nobody knows what the consequence would be, so there really isn’t one. The response to ‘you must attend’, ‘or what?’ is ‘or we’re not sure - please just attend’.
NeedMoreTea 8y ago
I think you'll find under the British constitution, and according to Erskine May, the definitive guide to Parliamentary practice, that it does. "any act or omission which obstructs or impedes either House of Parliament in the performance of its functions, or which obstructs or impedes any Member or officer of such House in the discharge of his duty, or which has a tendency, directly or indirectly, to produce such results, may be treated as a contempt even though there is no precedent of the offence" The government itself was found in contempt of Parliament over Brexit just this week. As the linked article notes, applies just as much to refusing to appear before a Parliamentary committee. https://www.politicshome.com/news/uk/houses/commons/news/100317/explained-what-happens-if-government-found-contempt-parliament https://www.politicshome.com/news/uk/houses/commons/news/100...
- chrisseaton 8y ago
  I think the consensus is that those powers are inoperable https://www.consoc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Select-Committees-and-Coercive-Powers-Clarity-or-Confusion.pdf https://www.consoc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Select-... https://www.google.co.uk/amp/www.theweek.co.uk/93679/can-mps-force-people-to-testify%3famp https://www.google.co.uk/amp/www.theweek.co.uk/93679/can-mps...
  - NeedMoreTea 8y ago
    It's unclear. Trouble is none of the powers seem to have been necessary in about a century, so it probably needs exploring in court. Or formalising powers in some new legislation, which will eventually result if people start to treat committee summons as optional. This is probably well overdue. :)

kodablah 8y ago

I can understand it's highly unusual. I don't have an absolute fear or no fear of doing business in the UK, it just ups my "riskometer" I mentioned. Surely it is clear that a vindictive government raiding a visitor and publishing confidential business documents should give one pause about the government's ideals? And I think we can make judgements about how decisions are reached instead of assuming that the exact steps that led to the decisions are the only reason they may go to such lengths. It is common for those dismissing chilling effects to say certain situations are special, but the effects are about ideals of the powerholders as much as their actions.

soared 8y ago
> vindictive government raiding What? OP literally just described how skipping a request for info is comparable to skipping a court summons in the US. If you skip a court summons 4 times, the government comes after you. How is this situation different? > publishing This certainly does raise questions. > government's ideals Investigating companies who might be implicit in crimes? (Gov is investigatng fake news, most of which is shared via facebook. Fb /probably/ didn't commit any crime, but they are closely involved and failing to cooperate raises red flags. Fake news isn't a crime, but there were questions of brexit advertising funds, election funds, etc.
- tzs 8y ago
  > If you skip a court summons 4 times, the government comes after you. How is this situation different? They didn't come after Facebook to obtain the documents. They went after someone who was suing Facebook and who was visiting England, and threatened him with jail unless he stole Facebook documents for them (which he had restricted access to as part of the discovery processes of his lawsuit against Facebook).
  - steve_gh 8y ago
    They are making a point. If Zuck had given evidence it would be in the public domain. He didn't, they have gained access to the documents, and are putting the bits they believe relevant to their inquiry into the public domain.