Unites States President Woodrow Wilson said on 26 February, 1916 “justice has nothing to do with expediency.” Well, try telling that to the Securities & Exchange Commission.

Lots has been written about R Allen Stanford, his often controversial Stanford Financial Group, his investments in cricket (which is through my following of that I was ‘introduced’ to the man), money laundering, womanising…the list goes on. Those who have been following events since early this year will find it difficult to fathom how one man can be so many things. I’ve seen lots of opinion, sometimes founded logic. On the odd occasion I’ve even read things that sound like the truth. So far however evidence has not been delivered or at least was not even in front of a Grand Jury before this guy has had every asset (read “property”)  taken, split up, spat out and now mostly lost.

The 5th Amendment of the US Constitution says, “no person shall be held for ….infamous crime….nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law…”. In late February the SEC accused Sir Allen Stanford of ‘massive ongoing fraud” and of running a “ponzi scheme” (read “infamous crime”) and simultaneously rid him of every asset without the rightful due process. In fact he was stripped of everything without any process involving him. To boot, other countries like Venezuela jumped on the bandwagon and nationalised his local banks taking the eventual sales proceeds. This is surely not ‘due process’ or am I missing something?

I must say on that afternoon when I first read of the storm that took Stanford I was swept away myself. Was this real? Can a Government do this? In America? What was that said by President Wilson because this move was real fast?

Nicola di Bernardo dei Machiavelli, advocate of practical politics in his work ‘The Prince’ is widely acknowledged to have originated the phrase ‘the ends justify the means’.  Basically, the theory is the greater good is served by being effective rather than fair. If he is a crook, lock him up. When accusations alone are enough to close a business down lock stock and barrel by the operators of justice we are in a different age, a different blueprint, a different view. Machiavelli proclaimed expediency as the surest way to justice. But Machiavellian principles were not those employed in the USA. The land of the free. The home of the brave. The USA I thought I knew was an open economy. A free economy. A place where you are innocent until proven guilty. A country that was safe to invest in as due process and the other fine principles of freedom, democracy and free markets reigned. Unfortunately the SEC has chosen the path of expediency and with it swept like a howling wind through the principles we all hold as fundamental and the words of President Wilson in one fell swoop. The SEC has favoured a Machiavellian approach of expediency….and that is the best case reading and assumes that their allegations are correct.

I have not yet mounted the courage to define the actions of the SEC if they are not right. Is this possible? Unfortunately we will never know. Allen Stanford has now been indicted by a Grand Jury and faces criminal charges. These charges were laid months after his businesses were seized. During these months the SEC initiated Court appointed receiver has been spending big, fighting jurisdictional battles it never had a right to win if the USA concedes some level of sovereignty for a small country like Antigua and has had control of every document, record and other tool and resource owned by Stanford. Would you trust Machiavelli? Would you trust expediency over due process? What do you consider justice?

The SEC has decided Stanford must go. Perhaps his South American depositors, Caribbean tax haven bank and Libyan Government investment simply rubbed noses for too long. Perhaps he should have known that selling offshore deposits to mainstream Americans was not going to go down too well in the long run.

When I first starting looking into Stanford Financial last year as the name entered the world of cricket I too felt there was something of substance that was absent. I instantly thought the financials were hollow. I could not see how the money was generated. I saw a façade that seemed at best to be inch deep. I wondered how would the SEC take this guy? What will they do? Surely they can’t just take him out? Surely they will have to find actions that respect the fundamental rights we all expect and need. Deep down however I knew Stanford was on dangerous ground. In the back of my mind the thought persisted. My feeling was the SEC was a regulator. A regulator is one way defined as a device that ensures uniform speed. Stanford was moving too fast. The regulator would slow him down. But he was out of their jurisdiction. In any case, hollow financials did not naturally extend to fraud and the SEC had not taken appropriate and legal actions available to it to have discovered fraud in any legitimate way.  My goodness….they may cut him at the knees! Decapitate him! Surely this was just a nightmare…..but then Madoff came along….things got worse…..Stanford was still going fast….maybe even faster…..my thoughts became convictions. Sometimes in life the inevitable occurs to you. Stanford was dead. His whole enterprise seemed to me was living on borrowed time.

On the 17th February 2009 when the SEC filed a civil case against Allen Stanford and his Stanford Financial Group it became clear that the ideals that are the façade we hope to be our legal rights as free citizens were only skin deep. Below the surface were the organs and they were practical units. They regulated and made sure everything went at just the right speed. Regulators use methods that are advantageous to their required outcome rather than what is ‘just’.

I hope Mr Stanford is telling the truth. We all deserve it. Besides, it’s the only way everyone will get their money back now…..