Sunday, December 19, 2010
Nigeria has agreed to drop corruption charges against former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney and other corporate executives accused of bribing the government to secure a profitable natural gas deal. In exchange for the case’s dismissal, Halliburton, the company Cheney ran during the 1990s, agreed to pay $250 million to the Nigerian government.
A Nigerian prosecutor claimed $180 million in bribes were paid by representatives of Halliburton (which Cheney ran as CEO from 1995 to 2000), its former subsidiary KBR Inc., Technip SA (Europe’s second-largest oilfield-services provider), Eni SpA (Italy’s biggest oil company) and Saipem Construction, a unit of Eni, to secure about $6 billion in contracts for building a liquefied natural gas plant.
Last year, KBR was fined $402 million by the U.S. government after officials pleaded guilty to conspiracy and corruption charges. Also, Halliburton and KBR agreed to pay $177 million in forfeited profits, without admitting any wrongdoing, as a result of a separate civil case.
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