Hello, hello, hello ... what have we here? Is that a brown envelope, Mr Turner?”

One imagines that, after their embarrassing detention in Houston by US Department of Justice officials, Mike Turner and Sir Nigel Rudd will not be returning in a hurry. US immigration is tedious at the best of times. But a shakedown by rottweilers in button-down shirts is way beyond anything the Home Office throws at visiting Americans. Can you imagine the fuss if Bill Gates's laptop was investigated at Heathrow by European Commission antitrust sleuths. “Excuse me, Mr Gates, did you buy your Media Player software separately or was it bundled into your Windows?”

You have to wonder what the DoJ was trying to achieve by nabbing the BAE Systems chief executive and one of his non-executive directors. The DoJ will by now have amassed by subpoena as much evidence as is available regarding BAE's alleged shenanigans with Saudi princes. Did they really believe Mr Turner's address book would contain names of slush fund recipients?

It is the sort of prosecutorial grandstanding that is becoming sadly common in the US. It is no accident that Shell has just abandoned an Iranian gas development, fearing that it may find itself caught up in a US sanctions-busting row. Shell fears that it will fall prey to the same sort of futile harassment and thinks it is just not worth the aggravation.

In its cynical approach to the Saudi corruption case, the British Government has left companies at the mercy of over-zealous US law enforcers. If UK companies are corrupt, they should be prosecuted here, not abandoned to the whim of a US court presided over by a judge running for re-election.

david.wighton@thetimes.co.uk

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