From: James Mendelssohn [mailto:JMendelssohn@msiglobal.org]
Sent: Monday, 22 November 2010 11:18 p.m.
To: ‘Grace Haden’
Subject: RE: What are the expected ethical standards of you member companies.
Dear Ms Haden
Thank you for your recent e-mail. I was obviously concerned to read about the matters that you raised. As a global organisation of professional firms, we take any allegation made against any of our member firms extremely seriously. Indeed, the whole rationale of our organisation would be undermined if we could not rely on our members.
I have now had the opportunity to consider your e-mail carefully and to read the links provided. I would like to make two specific comments.
First, I think that it is extremely unfortunate that your blog contains speculative and inaccurate comments, particularly when you say that MSI Global Alliance does not appear to have a Code of Conduct. We have a document that has that exact title which is available on our website and is in the public domain. Your comments are therefore incorrect and, by implication, defamatory. I must ask you to remove or correct those comments on your blog immediately.
Secondly, I understand that you are pursuing a legal case against Peter Spring and Keegan Alexander, and that you have also raised the matter with the appropriate professional bodies. I believe that this is the correct course of action if you have a grievance, and I would be pleased to learn the final outcome of any such matters. I strongly believe that where our members are operating in a country with a developed and transparent legal system, it is better to allow due process to be followed in the local jurisdiction, rather than us trying to impose our own ‘judgement’ from afar. Therefore, until these matters are finally resolved, I believe that it is inappropriate for us to second guess the final decision.
I hope you understand our position.
Kind regards
James Mendelssohn
Chief Executive
MSI Global Alliance
my reply
Thank You Mr Mendelssohn
First of all I am not pursuing a legal case against Peter Spring and Keegan Alexander and I do not know where you got that notion from, I will be reporting the incident to the law society , which typically results in no action at all as New Zealand prefers to keep its least corrupt status by condoning such practices there by not acknowledging them as being corrupt.
As to your code of Conduct: the only document I found was one which prescribed the conduct amongst members as I stated in my blog I did not find a code of conduct “ which embraces ethical values outside their organisation”
Your Code-Conduct.pdf does not extend to or include the expected ethical values which are accepted and tolerated by your associated partners .
As an Anti corruption campaigner I look for the ethical values to be enshrined in the code of conduct and expect these to be upheld and enforced.
I do hope that you can bring this to the attention to the directorship of your organisation , You will find that many of your members will be in countries where the united nations convention against corruption has been ratified, however New Zealand is not one of those countries and our tolerance for corruption is somewhat higher than most of your members would accept , it is therefore important that your own rules set the standard as you do not wish to have your reputation tarnished by low ethical standards of others.
Ethics are like a chain it is as only as strong as the weakest link . You have control over that link you could cut it loose ,tidy it up or live knowing that it will be the link that sees the whole chain collapse.
The choice is yours I have brought it to your attention and I hope that you will take time to read the comments of Harrison J those are the comments of a justice about Mr Spring and Keegan Alexander – not mine.
If you would be so kind as to point me to a document in which you set out the expected ethical standards I will post the link on my blog to accurately reflect your expected standards .
In interest of transparency I will post both your reply and my response on my blog .
Regards
Grace Haden
Phone (09) 520 1815
mobile 027 286 8239
visit us at www.verisure.co.nz
Anticorruptionnz's Blog 