Mizzima News

New Delhi (Mizzima) - A United Kingdom based campaign group has urged the British government to investigate UK registered insurance companies to check whether they have committed financial crimes by bribing the Burmese military junta.

The Burma Campaign UK, a group advocating human rights and democracy in Burma, in their letter to the British government urged the Financial Services Authority (FSA) to launch an investigation into insurance companies for their involvement in Burma and to see if they have bribed the regime to secure business.

The call came following a news report in The Times newspaper on Aon Ltd being fined £ 5.25 million by the FSA for making suspicious payments to third parties including the Burmese military regime owned company for over a period of two and-a-half years.

The report, citing the FSA said, Aon Limited made 66 suspicious payments to win or retain business in Bahrain, Bangladesh, Bulgaria, Burma, Indonesia and Vietnam.

Johnny Chatterton, campaigns officer at the BCUK, said while they are aware that the Aon Ltd no longer has business deals with Burma, the incident is a warning that UK registered insurance companies still has links with the military-ruled Southeast Asian country.

Anna Roberts, director of the BCUK, in her letter to the British Treasury on Monday said the BCUK has exposed 14 UK registered companies still into insuring business operations in Burma.

"Given the widespread corruption in Burma we are concerned that (re)insurance companies operating in the Burmese market may have committed financial crimes in their dealings with businesses in the country," Roberts said in the letter.

Roberts said, companies such as Lloyd's of London companies, including Catlin, Atrium and Kiln, QBE, Hannover Re, Sompo Japan, Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance, ACE Group, Labuan Re, OCBC Bank, Pana Harrison, Target Insurance Brokers, and Al Wasl have provided (re)insurance services to companies in Burma.

"…we want the UK government to look into if they [the companies] have committed financial crimes, given that bribe and corruption are widespread in Burma," Chatterton told Mizzima.

The BCUK has been vigorously urging governments, particularly the UK, in Europe and the European Union itself to tighten economic sanctions against Burma's military rulers, saying sanctions hurts the junta, who are notorious for abusing the rights of its own civilians.

Chatterton said companies in insuring business in Burma bring double benefits to the regime as the junta earns revenue from the business projects as well as an extra commission on insurance companies.

Companies having business deals in Burma use independent insurance companies to insure their business in the country. But such insurance companies have to go through the Myanmar Insurance Enterprise (MIE), which takes commission from the insurance companies. It gives double profits of multi-million dollars to the regime from both their business partners as well as from the insurance companies.

The BCUK's argument, however, is that companies including those that are registered in the UK might have bribed the Burmese regime to allow them to insure business operations, and thus commit financial crimes.

Chatterton said several business operations including airlines and mining have been shut-down in Burma in the past due to the withdrawal of insurance companies.

The European Union and the United States has imposed economic sanctions on Burma, which has been ruled by military since 1962.

The impoverished country has been listed as the second most corrupt country by the Transparency International in its 2008 Corruption Perceptions Index.