Behind the Blue Banana story

The local media has given extensive coverage to the bluebanana.com story, although surprisingly I haven't seen anything in the British press, yet.

Briefly, Simon Ford the founder of the internet 'events and alternative gifts company' fled the country because his company was on the verge of bankruptcy, owing large amounts of money.

He's not the first to do that of course - but he hit the news because he wrote a letter to 'the Dubai public' trying to explain his actions and promising to pay all debts in due course.

In the letter he says that personal threats were made and that "certain individuals arrived at my place of residence in Dubai at the start of Sunday, confirming that the follow through on many of the threats was very real".

That's not unique to Dubai. In peaceful, law-abiding Singapore I briefly worked for a company which was not paying suppliers and several of them sent heavies to the office to seriously threaten the management.

But the real issue the story raises in my opinion is that the laws on bankruptcy and in particular on bounced cheques needs urgent attention.

As residents will presumably know, writing post dated cheques is, bizarrely in the 21st century, still a normal way to do business in the UAE.

Two things make that dangerous. One, the cheques cannot be cancelled. Two, if they bounce it is a criminal offence.

Even the Dubai Police Chief, Lt. Gen. Dahi Khalfan Tamim, has been calling for it to be de-criminalised and made a civil matter, as it is in most other countries.

We do have bankruptcy laws but business people and lawyers have been calling for them to be updated.

There's another problem which I've mentioned in previous posts. Spending time in jail before charge or trial while investigations are carried out. This happens in all kinds of instances when allegations are made against someone.

Whether someone would be sent to Al Slammer in reality is perhaps less the issue than the widespread perception that it may happen. Not willing to take the risk, people understandably skip the country.

Many of our laws need updating which means a heavy workload for the lawmakers and the advisors who are called in. In fairness, laws are being changed but these areas need particularly urgent attention from three viewpoints. One, it means too many people are in jail when they really shouldn't be. Two, the police and courts are spending too much time on cases which really should't be classed as criminal. Three, the present laws don't gel with Dubai's reliance on business and with its future so dependent on business thriving and growing.


'Arabian Business' has Simon Ford's story here and comments from lawyers here.