Ban Bain & Co from US government contracts, Joe Biden is urged

theguardian.com:

Joe Biden should follow the UK in banning the global management consultancy firm Bain & Company from future government contracts in the US, the Labour peer Peter Hain has said.

In a letter shared with the Guardian, the former minister and anti-apartheid campaigner urged the US president to “act on this matter and establish a clear precedent that will signal to all US global companies, consultancies, lawyers, auditors and financial advisers that collusion with corrupt politicians and their business cronies in other countries will not be tolerated”.

Bain was last month barred from tendering for UK government contracts for three years over its “grave professional misconduct” in state corruption in South Africa. Britain became the first western country to take this step, after pressure from Lord Hain.

In January, the Guardian revealed the Labour peer had called on Boris Johnson’s government to penalise Bain, which is based in Boston, Massachusetts, over its “despicable” role in South Africa’s biggest post-apartheid corruption scandal.

In his letter to Biden, Hain wrote: “I urge the US government to similarly institute a ban on Bain working for any public sector organisation in your country, at least until the current judicial process over Bain’s nefarious role in South Africa has completed its full course.”

The Labour peer sent a copy of the document to Ron Kind, the chair of the British-American parliamentary group in the US House of Representatives.

The UK government’s decision came after the findings of two independent judicial commissions of inquiry in South Africa, namely the Nugent commission in 2018 and the Zondo commission, which concluded this year, chaired by Judge Robert Nugent and Chief Justice Raymond Zondo