Word: leylands
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...must take exception to your statement: "Like Lockheed, the British auto giant [British Leyland Motor Corp.] had to seek government assistance to keep it going; in 1975 the British government spent millions to buy 95% of the company's stock and rescue it from bankruptcy...
...Daily Mail's evidence seemed highly questionable. One item was a photostat of a letter that the paper said had been sent by Lord Ryder, who as chairman of the National Enterprise Board oversees companies in which the government owns shares, to British Leyland Chief Executive Alex Park. The letter spoke of a "proposed method for dealing with 'special account arrangements' " that had been "nodded through" by Varley. The note went on to mention Ryder's concern about "the escalating trend of payment to 'contract agents,' " especially in the Middle East, and included...
Secret Cash. At a tense session in the House of Commons, Industry Secretary Varley denied having "nodded anything through" that was connected with overseas payoffs. A British Leyland financial executive named Graham Barton later admitted that he had forged the Ryder letter. But he insisted that he had done so only to emphasize "what I regarded as a national scandal," and maintained that other documents cited in the Daily Mail story were genuine...
Those included what was described as a confidential company report prepared by Barton outlining a system for making "special payments" out of Switzerland to British Leyland distributors and agents. Among the abuses mentioned was a practice of overbilling distributors so that they would appear to have little taxable profit; secret cash payments would then be "suitcased" to them-literally carried in satchels-or deposited in numbered bank accounts in Switzerland or Liechtenstein...
...life." Nonetheless, the Daily Mail's story could hardly have come at a more awkward time. Only two weeks ago, at the London summit, British officials joined representatives from the U.S. and other countries in solemnly pledging to help stamp out the very practices with which British Leyland is charged...