International Love

Introduction

Now that the dust of the United Kingdom's "Brexit" & the resultant (somewhat-messy) change of government has settled, the world can finally get back to business as usual. The UK actually plays a surprisingly important world trade role, & so members of the global financial community are curious as to what is going to pass for business as usual in post-Brexit Britain.

Perhaps, the country that should be most concerned about the aforementioned after-effects is Pakistan. According to media reports, Pakistani Commerce Minister Khurram Dastgir is taking the sensible route by simply sending his counterpart in the new UK Government a congratulatory message accompanied by the usual civilities pertaining to continuing bilateral trade relations, but has not jumped to making enthusiastic commitments that could prove counter-productive to the Pakistani economy in the long term...a fact that proves exceedingly satisfying, primarily because most financial experts would have expected Finance Minister Ishaq Dar - had he been in-charge of trade talks - to have returned from a personal visit to London where he had sworn before Prime Minister Theresa May to make sure every Pakistani taxpayer sang "God Save The Queen" before breakfast every morning!

Anyway, the local media went on to disclose that the Pakistani Commerce Ministry is conducting the necessary due diligence before deciding upon whether to negotiate an amended version of the now-obsolete Generalised System of Preferences (GSP) Plus scheme or to simply go for a free trade agreement (FTA) between Pakistan & the UK. In the spirit of providing the interested sections of the public with an idea of some of the main points that the Commerce Ministry is no doubt currently scrutinising, given below are some of the UK's finance-related issues that are currently making headlines in the international media.

Brexit: To Be Or Not To Be?

Firstly, despite the hullabaloo about Brexit being"final" & "irreversible", there seems to be a certain amount of uncertainty concerning the permanence of the move. This debate is gaining traction, possibly because the full & formal Brexit is not due until October. Some of the more serious challenges to Brexit are as follows (courtesy CNN Money):

"British citizen & World War II veteran Harry Shindler, 95, argues that hundreds of thousands of British citizens living abroad were denied the right to vote in the referendum, which should nullify the referendum results. Anyone living outside the UK for over 15 years was denied a referendum vote. Shindler, who has been living in Italy since the early 1980s, said the fact that he was denied a vote was arbitrary & undemocratic. Shindler has exhausted his legal options in UK courts, but his challenge is now being heard by the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, he said. The UK government has already rejected a petition calling for a second referendum, signed by more than 4 million people."

"Law firm Maitland Chambers was the first to present a lawsuit in court. Further hearings in this case are set for October. Maitland Chambers' senior barrister Dominic Chambers says that, contrary to popular belief, the new UK prime minister - Theresa May - does not have the legal authority to trigger the nation's formal exit from the EU. That can only happen once members of parliament approve the move, he argues. The Maitland Chambers case will be heard together with another related challenge by law firm Mishcon de Reya. A decision is expected by the end of October. Any appeal would go directly to the Supreme Court."

"Northern Ireland has launched a legal challenge to Brexit in which it argues that the UK cannot formally extract itself from the EU because this would violate the terms of a treaty it signed in 1998 to secure peace in Northern Ireland. The complicated treaty - called the Good Friday Agreement - laid out rules about political leadership in the region to end decades of violence. McIvor Farrell Solicitors have filed the case in the high court in Belfast. An initial hearing is scheduled for next week. The law firm also argues that an exit from the EU would be unlawful until members of parliament vote to approve the move. The British public voted by a slim majority to leave the European Union in June, but most voters in Northern Ireland wanted to remain. The referendum was not legally binding, but only advisory in nature."

DFID: The Hits Just Keep On Coming

Secondly, the UK Department For International Development (DFID) already made quite a mess of its credibility when it was found to be funding subversive activities in Haripur, Hazara, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan since Heaven knows when. Now, the news is out on its latest compliance catastrophe in the form of its generous funds to charity Development Aid from People to People Malawi (Dapp Malawi) which has received more than US$6 million in aid from the UK since 2012! The issue could be summarised as follows (courtesy BBC News):

"A charity - Dapp Malawi - that has been paid millions by the UK government for its work in Africa is under the control of a cult-like organisation, an investigation by the BBC & US partners has revealed. The senior leaders of the group (wanted by Interpol) - known as the Teachers Group (a Danish cult set up in the early 1970s) - are thought to be holed up in a luxury coastal compound in Mexico."

Let the record state that the DFID has responded by reminding the general public that it has a zero-tolerance approach to fraud & corruption & would like to invite the BBC to send it all the evidence it can so that the DFID may personally name & shame any parties responsible for this alleged illegality.

EuroFX: Money Stolen = Lives Lost

Thirdly, "EuroFX" - also known as "Euro Forex Investment Ltd" - is a British pyramid scheme that reportedly got its start somewhere in 1999 & became a multinational scam around 2012 when its flamboyant representative, Britisher David Byrne, breezed into China & wound up defrauding hundreds - other reports say thousands - of unsuspecting Chinese respectable middle-class citizens. Some have even been rumored to have died in mysterious circumstances or committed suicide when the scam was exposed completely in spring this year. But the magnitude of the tragedy of pyramid schemes never feels real when it is couched in cold, hard financial terms; it truly comes to life when - ironically - it is described in words that touch upon the lives ruined...or ended. Given below is the story of an unfortunate old lady who fell for EuroFX's false claims (courtesy Reuters):

"In the village of Tangshan in August 2015, Zhang Guiling was struggling to repay loans she had taken out to invest in EuroFX. She went from door to door, borrowing money wherever she could, her brother Zhang Fusheng - also a EuroFX victim - said. As the interest bills piled up, her creditors started showing up at her home & where her husband & son worked, threatening them. People who had known her for years started to avoid her. She called her older sister & said she was tired of living, her sister said. Alone in the house one day, she swallowed an overdose of medicines she had been prescribed for high blood pressure, her family said. Her husband found her body when he returned from work. While the family didn’t ask for an inquest to determine the cause of her death, her brother Fusheng feels sure EuroFX is responsible."

Considering that the EuroFX investigation is reported to span at least another 9 countries, it would be imperative for the Pakistani Commerce Ministry to make certain that the as-yet unidentified mastermind behind this serious fraud is not operating in Pakistan...after all, it would be far easier, cheaper & more just to identify & tackle the problem before either side makes a blunder & promises something it cannot deliver.