The case of the “NatWest three” has stirred up huge concern among business people in the UK. This week, however, we learn that the three former NatWest bankers have pleaded guilty to wire fraud. So was this just much British ado about nothing? My answer is: “no”. The fact that these three men pleaded guilty does not prove they were. It demonstrates that the offers made by US prosecutors are of a kind sensible people cannot refuse. The pressures the former can exert make it rational, even for the innocent, to plead guilty. I do not know whether that happened here. But it would not be very surprising.

This case had yet another disturbing feature: the fact that the three men were extradited under a treaty agreed with the US in 2003 that allows US courts to extradite people without establishing a prima facie (preliminary) case in a British one. Many believe the good reason for this change was the need to co-operate over terrorism. Yet it has, in practice, been used extensively against British business people by US prosecutors who are targeting white-collar crime.