Halliburton seeks distance from bribe inquiry

[UpInArms]

http://www.iht.com/bin/print.php?file=524792.html

HOUSTON Halliburton, the big oil-services company, has sought to distance itself from a report that investigators in France are close to completing an inquiry into payments on a project in Nigeria that might have enriched a former executive.

Investigators in the United States, France and Nigeria have been examining accusations that KBR - the Halliburton engineering and construction unit that was formerly called Kellogg, Brown Root - was involved in making $180 million in illegal payments in the 1990s to win a contract to build a natural gas complex in Nigeria.

Halliburton disclosed on Friday that the Securities and Exchange Commission had begun a formal investigation into the payments. French investigators are reported to have uncovered evidence showing that about $5 million of payments related to the Nigeria project were deposited into a Swiss bank account controlled by Albert Stanley, the former chairman of KBR. The French weekly Journal du Dimanche reported on Sunday that investigative specialists in France had compared the payments to those in a scandal involving Elf, the French oil company at the center of bribery accusations associated with its ventures in Africa.

<snip>

Stanley retired as KBR's chairman last year, but he still works as a consultant for the company and maintains an office at its headquarters in Houston. He did not return calls on Sunday to his office and home. Kaplan acknowledged that he was representing Stanley, but said in a telephone interview on Sunday that he was "unable to make any comment at this time."

The Swiss account belonging to Stanley was reported this month by the French newspaper Le Figaro to have received 3 percent to 5 percent of the $180 million of payments made to TSKJ, a consortium formed by KBR and three partners, Technip of France, Eni of Italy and the JGC Corp. of Japan, to carry out work on the Nigeria project.

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[louis-t]

1. Ah yes, the typical right-wing verbage manipulation..

'bribery' becomes 'improper payments', 'deceitful, bold-faced lying' becomes 'we mis-spoke'. Are Repubs really still falling for this?

[struggle4progress]

2. kick

:kick: