Americans are fond of self-righteously labeling their neighbors to the south corrupt. Remember the old sayings? "Let those without sin cast the first stone," and the one about people living in glass houses? For a long time, it has seemed to me that the reasons the US doesn't rank at the top of countries marred by corruption in perception of corruption polls are
1. that we call legal stuff other countries don't.
2. that we don't even notice it until it hits us in the face.
3. we don't pay enough attention to the problem.
a. because we have short attention spans and can't seem to think of too many things at the same time.
b. because we get very poor information from the mass media.
c. because we think we're above doing such stuff.
Halliburton, Dick Cheney's old stomping grounds, is one of the more blatantly corrupt companies in our country. In this case, it was downright criminal. And Dick Cheney was still there!
This is from a Financial Times story by Joanna Chung which I picked up from Truthout.
company, and its former parent, Halliburton, have agreed to pay a
combined $579 million to settle US criminal and civil allegations that
KBR bribed Nigerian government officials to obtain contracts.
The fines, imposed by the US Department of Justice and the US
Securities and Exchange Commission, make the largest combined settlement
ever paid by US companies for violations of the 1977 Foreign Corrupt
Practices Act. They are the second biggest fines ever imposed, after the
$800 million US settlement by Siemens, the German conglomerate.
US law enforcement officials have stepped up enforcement of the
FCPA, which bans companies that do business in the US from bribing
government officials anywhere in the world.
The investigation covered a period when Halliburton was headed by
Dick Cheney, former US vice-president. KBR was a wholly owned subsidiary
of Halliburton, the oilfield services company, until 2007, when KBR
became a separate company.
Of the total fines, $402 million is related to criminal charges by
the justice department, accusing Houston-based KBR of participating in a
decade-long scheme to bribe Nigerian government officials to obtain
contracts - valued at more than $6 billion - to build liquefied natural
gas facilities. KBR entered guilty pleas on Wednesday, said prosecutors,
who added that the company was part of a four-company joint venture that
paid bribes to officials.
Meanwhile, KBR and Halliburton agreed to pay $177 million in
forfeited profits to settle civil charges by the SEC without admitting
or denying wrongdoing. The SEC accused KBR of violating the FCPA's
anti-bribery provisions. It also accused KBR and Halliburton of engaging
in books and records violations and internal controls violations related
to bribery.
Beginning as early as 1994, the SEC alleges, members of the joint
venture determined it was necessary to pay bribes. To conceal the
illicit payments, the joint venture entered into sham contracts with two
agents, one based in the UK and one in Japan, to funnel money to
Nigerian officials, the SEC claims.
Antonia Chion, associate director of the SEC's enforcement division,
said: "Multinational companies should take heed that attempting to
conceal bribes by funnelling them through intermediaries or offshore
entities will not be successful."
Last September, Albert Stanley, KBR's former chief executive,
pleaded guilty to conspiring to violate the FCPA. KBR and Halliburton
lawyers did not immediately return comment requests.
By the way, you should check out Truthout if you haven't already. It picks up stories from a variety of reliable sources and puts them all in one place. It also has some of its own very fine commentators. It is looking or money as it is a not-for-profit that takes nothing from either the government or corporate sponsors.