Halliburton tied to Tristar scandal (French are investigating)

[PfcHammer]

http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20040602-124648-3045r.htm

Halliburton tied to Tristar scandal

Paris, France, Jun. 2 (UPI) -- Paris officials investigating suspicious payments from a consortium that includes French interests now have possible evidence of a Halliburton link.

Last October French investigators began looking at a Gibraltar group called Tristar that got $180 million for "commercial services," the Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday.

The payment came from a consortium known as TSKJ, jointly controlled by Halliburton's Kellog Brown & Root, Technip of France, a unit of Italy's ENI and Japan Gasoline.

...

According to the French newspaper Le Figaro, Paris officials became suspicious of the $180 million payment to Tristar and have been unable to find what "commercial services" were ever rendered.

[UpInArms]

1. some background

http://www.businesspundit.com/archives/001016.html

January 08, 2004

Halliburton, Bribes, and Foreign Business Ventures

This article about how the French might indict Cheney for Nigerian bribes has caused me to give some thought to the bribery problem in general. In the Halliburton case, here is what happened.

According to accounts in the French press, Judge van Ruymbeke believes that some or all of $180 million in so-called secret "retrocommissions" paid by Halliburton and Technip were, in fact, bribes given to Nigerian officials and others to grease the wheels for the refinery's construction. These reports say van Ruymbeke has fingered as the bagman in the operation a 55-year-old London lawyer, Jeffrey Tesler, who has worked for Halliburton for some thirty years. It was Tesler who was paid the $180 million as a "commercial consultant" through a Gibraltar-based front company he set up called TriStar. TriStar, in turn, got the money from a consortium set up for the Nigeria deal by Halliburton and Technip and registered in Madeira, the Portuguese offshore island where taxes don't apply. According to Agence France-Presse, a former top Technip official, Georges Krammer, has testified that the Madeira-based consortium was a "slush fund" controlled by Halliburton--through its subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root--and Technip. Krammer, who is cooperating with the investigation, also swore that Tesler was imposed as the intermediary by Halliburton over the objections of Technip.

I won't pass judgement on whether or not this is right or wrong for one simple reason - bribery is an accepted practice in many countries. This article, (link: http://articles.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0DTI/is_10_28/ai_66239731 ) for instance, points out that:

"Bribery is a common way of doing business in a lot of places," says Steve Veltkamp, president of BizShop, an import/export business and consulting service in Port Angeles, Washington. Veltkamp, 47, notes that bribery is most common in underdeveloped countries. "Where basic jobs don't pay well, it's tempting for an official to 'supplement' income that way," says Veltkamp. "It's deeply ingrained."

...more...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4163810/

Another Halliburton Probe

Already under fire for its contracts in Iraq, the company now faces a Justice Department inquiry about business done during Dick Cheney’s tenure
WEB EXCLUSIVE
Newsweek
Updated: 4:16 p.m. ET Feb.04, 2004
Feb. 4 - The Justice Department has opened up an inquiry into whether Halliburton Co. was involved in the payment of $180 million in possible kickbacks to obtain contracts to build a natural gas plant in Nigeria during a period in the late 1990’s when Vice President Dick Cheney was chairman of the company, Newsweek has learned.

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There is no evidence that Cheney was
aware of the payments in question and an aide said today the vice president has not been contacted about the probe. Still, the inquiry by the Justice Department’s fraud section—which prosecutes federal anti-bribery law violations—is likely to bring new public attention to the vice president’s past at the giant oil-services firm. Halliburton has been under intense scrutiny in recent months over its handling of hundreds of millions of dollars contracts relating to the rebuilding of Iraq.

The Justice inquiry, along with a related probe by the Securities and Exchange Commission, parallels a separate investigation into the Nigerian payments that is being conducted by a French magistrate and has received widespread attention in recent months in the European press. But the Justice Department and SEC probes have not previously been reported, although they were briefly mentioned by Halliburton last week near the end of a lengthy filing with the SEC.

In the filing, the Houston-based company disclosed that the French magistrate was investigating the Nigerian payments and then added: “The U.S. Department of Justice and the SEC have asked Halliburton for a report on these matters and are reviewing the allegations in light of the US. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Halliburton has engaged outside counsel to investigate any allegations and is cooperating with the government’s inquiries… If illegal payments were made, this matter could have a material adverse effect on our business and results of operations.”

...more...

http://www.angelfire.com/ca3/jphuck/Book26Ch.2.html

excerpt:

n 2003, allegations were made that Halliburton distributed bribe money between 1995 and 2000, while Cheney served as CEO. Halliburton and a large French petro-engineering company, Technip, owned a $6 billion gas liquification factory in Nigeria on behalf of Shell Oil. Judge Renaud van Ruymbeke believed that some or all of $180 million in so-called secret “retrocommissions” paid by Halliburton and Technip were, in fact, bribes given to Nigerian officials and others in order to construct the plant. (Journal du Dimanche, December 21, 2003)

Judge van Ruymbeke believed that a London lawyer, Jeffrey Tesler, was paid the $180 million as a “commercial consultant” for a British company called TriStar to broker the deal between Halliburton and the Nigerian government. Tesler had worked for Halliburton for thirty years while he was the financial adviser to dictator General Sani Abacha. (The Nation, January 12, 2004)

Abacha’s oil minister was Dan Etete was suspected of having used some of the alleged bribe money to buy himself expensive property in Paris and Normandy. In December 2003, Etete testified that Tesler laundered the $180 million through offshore and other accounts, and that part of the money wound up in Abacha’s bank account. (The Nation, January 12, 2004)

...more...

It would be just fitting for France to nail this POS.

[UpInArms]

2. kicking this back to the front

:kick: