Directors of UK companies with just one shareholder in the US could be extradited in cases of alleged fraud, a leading QC warned last week.

Alun Jones, in a joint speech with Anand Doobay, a newly-appointed partner at London-based fraud law firm Peters & Peters, said that with the appetite of the US for law enforcement outside its own borders increasing, the chances of this happening is a distinct reality.


Addressing a cross-border crime conference organised by human rights group Justice and publisher Sweet & Maxwell, Mr Jones said: 'A director of a publicly listed UK company could be extradited to the US to be tried for fraud if his company's allegedly inaccurate reports are published in a US newspaper to a solitary US shareholder.'


Mr Jones added that any allegedly fraudulent scheme operated in the UK or Europe in which only one e-mail or electronic communication passes through a US Internet service provider is now indictable in the US.


He said the US has blurred the distinction between international and trans-national crimes. While the latter concern conduct that takes place in more than one jurisdiction, they are not international crimes like hijacking and hostage-taking: 'They have not been the subject to agreements which permit enlarged jurisdiction or call for common definition of crimes.'