TRUST between businesses is vitally important in a global economy where decisions are often taken thousands of miles apart. Without it, no business can survive for long.

And the best way to earn trust is to keep your word.

Sadly, as thousands of workers have discovered to their undoubted cost, Corus could not trust its foreign partners to live up to their end of the bargain regarding Teesside Cast Products.

In walking away from a ten-year supply contract the consortium has broken the bond of trust that existed between it and Corus, condemning 3,000 workers in the process.

The decision to tear up the deal is all the more puzzling because, until recently, two of the partners were actually negotiating to buy into the Teesside business.

Did the steel market fare so badly between the beginning of April – when the purchase was on track – and the end of the month, when things went ominously silent?

And even if they did, why did one of the firms looking to buy TCP say in February: “We are coming for the long term. We are fully aware that it requires a long-term view; we are a longterm player in the industry.”

Those were fine words, and if they were designed to calm fears about a foreign buy-out, then they probably worked. But subsequent actions would seem to disprove the view that the consortium was looking to the long term, at least as far as Teesside was concerned.

As Benjamin Franklin said: “It takes many good deeds to build a good reputation, and only one bad one to lose it.”