Is a Bully beyond the law?

First, Donald Trump, the newly elected US President, sacks Sally Yates because she – in her role as Attorney General – stated that his proposed banning of specific nationals is illegal, – and now he is further challenged by what he calls ‘so called judges’, – tweeting that he will see them in court…

For perhaps the first time in his life, he is being challenged by a ‘Body’ which might have greater power than him.

This is surprising really as the new US President has declared no less than FOUR of his companies as bankrupt.

But, on the other hand, he has successfully warded off the US taxman and made tax avoidance sound like a virtue…

Perhaps that is why he believes he can beat the Judges in the context of his immigration initiative. He is not the first successful Executive who believes he is immune from the law.

The demise of Enron and institutiosn such as Lehmann Brothers and Bernie Madoff are further example of such ‘hubris’.

As I have mentioned in my previous blog ( http://baudino.co/how-to-deal-with-a-bully/) , I came very close to such a man: Robert Maxwell (RM), and might have – unwittingly – played a part in his illusion of Being Beyond The Law.

I am not talking about his instructions to his chauffeurs to jump the lights – regardless of Driving Codes and the fact that it would be the chauffeur who would lose his licence, and not he – the passenger…

I am talking about Maxwell’s relationship with the Board of Trade (which was subsequently renamed DTI and eventually today’s Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy): in 1971, following an Ethics Report on Maxwell, the Board of Trade, stated that Maxwell was not in their opinion a person ‘who can be relied on to exercise proper stewardship of a publicly quoted company’.

Fast forward to 1988 and the announcement that the same Government Body would release 6 licenses to companies in Specialized Satellite Services. There were some 27 applicants for these much-coveted licenses (including the BBC, Reuters, Rupert Murdoch’s Sky). The idea was to deregulate the telecoms industry and reduce the hold held mainly by British Telecom.

Earlier the previous year, I had recommended to Maxwell and the Pergamon Media Board the acquisition of a company providing video conferencing services to both companies and individuals. This was approved – and the company was renamed Maxwell Satellite Communications Ltd, with me as CEO.

As the company had already dipped its toes into telecoms, it seemed a natural extension to apply for one of the licenses. Thus, some 17 years after the damning Ethics Report, this corporate entity which carried its owner’s name, entered into the fray for a satellite license.

On October 26th 1988 (a date I will always remember as it was also my birthday), Lord Young – in his guise as head of the DTI, – announced the name of the 6 successful candidates: (little) Maxwell Satellite Communications was one of them!

This victory over his arch-rival the media mogul, Rupert Murdoch, and others prompted one of Maxwell’s very rare phone calls to me at home. He was absolutely over the moon at the news and invited me to visit his office the next day.

Imagine how this must have felt for RM – after being publicly criticized by the Government, Maxwell (through my efforts and the members of my ‘team’) had not only got a ‘blessing’ from the same Government Body that had judged him unfit to run a public company but had also beaten the Establishment in the form of the BBC and other leading British corporates.

Ironically, I believe that one of the reasons for our success was due to the fact that we did not include Maxwell in any of our presentations to the Government and in fact declared that he would not be involved with the running of the company (apart from its financing).

Of course the financing never came to pass, and we ended up selling part of the company to France Telecom.

However, I cannot help but wonder whether this DTI victory led to Maxwell’s mistaken belief that he could dip into the employees’ Pension Fund – a question I will probably never resolve as I was not privy to his actions in this context and, in fact, I remained blissfully unaware until the news hit the papers (and I had ‘departed’ from the Maxwell ‘Empire’).

Back to Donald Trump: perhaps the endorsement he received from his followers over his proposed immigration policies – combined with his much flaunted avoidance at paying taxes – justifies his belief that he can overrule the Judges.

As with Maxwell, only time will be the ultimate Judge as to whether Trump is right…

Thank you for reading!