Brown refuses to tackle vulture funds yet again - Featherstone

12.00.00am BST (GMT +0100) Thu 10th May 2007

The Government has today missed another opportunity to take meaningful action to tackle vulture funds, said Liberal Democrat Shadow International Development Secretary, Lynne Featherstone MP. Her comments come after Gordon Brown issued a written ministerial statement about the funds, which buy the debt obligations of poor countries at a fraction of their face value in the hope of enforcing them through the courts at full value.

In one recent case Donegal International was awarded $15.5m from Zambia in a case at London's High Court.

Lynne Featherstone said:

"This statement once again proves that Gordon Brown is happy to talk about this problem, but won't actually do anything to address it.

"It was a disgrace that a court in this country awarded Donegal International millions of pounds from Zambia.

"Whilst international action is required to solve this situation in the long term, Gordon Brown needs to show good will on this and actually start addressing this problem in his own backyard.

"The Government uses phrases like 'will therefore take forward talks' which prove to be meaningless as soon as you read between the lines. It is time they stepped up their efforts beyond empty rhetoric."