I join Gordon Clack (Oxford Mail, June 26) in urging Lloyds TSB Bank customers and shareholders to object to its blatant obeisance to Washington, but would like to add Barclays Bank and Hilton Hotels to his list.
All three companies accept United States' extra-territorial jurisdiction over how they conduct business in Britain.
In doing so, they uphold the American-enforced 48-year long economic blockade of Cuba, which has caused unconscionable hardship and suffering within Cuba.
Note that in discriminating against Cubans and people who do business with Cuba, these companies violate UK law.
Their actions also defy the recent Council of Europe decision to normalise trade and diplomatic relations with Cuba and ignore worldwide condemnation of the blockade.
The UN General Assembly has expressed that condemnation in 16 consecutive votes, most recently in 2007, when 184 countries, including the UK, voted against it and only four voted for it or abstained.
This latest example of American extra-territorial jurisdiction is deeply troubling.
In 1996, Parliament passed legislation to penalise UK companies that comply with extra-territorial aspects of American law, but that legislation has never been invoked to protect UK sovereignty.
Why not? In addition to contacting the companies in question, I urge readers to contact their MPs to demand an answer to that question and to demand that UK companies be held accountable to UK law.
DEBB BUCHHOLTZ Oxford Road Banbury
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