On January 26th, Halliburton reached tentative settlement agreements with the Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission over an investigation into bribery charges against its former KBR subsidary.
Albert "Jack" Stanley, a former chairman and CEO of KBR, pleaded guilty to participating in a joint venture that lasted from 1995 to 2004 which paid $180 million in bribes to government officials in Nigeria order to build a $6 billion dollar liquified natural gas (LNG) plant on Nigeria's Bonny Island. Stanley also received $10.8 million in kickbacks from a consultant who was hired to facilitate LNG contracts around the world.
Stanley, who worked under U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney when he was CEO of Halliburton, was fired in 2004 for violating the company's business code and receiving "improper personal benefits".
Plea in Bribery Case
Bribing foreign officials to obtain business is illegal under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (15 U.S.C. 78). Violations of the FCPA can result in criminal and civil penalties and suspension of the right to do business with the Federal government.
As part of his plea deal accepted by the court, Jack Stanley faces 7 years in prison and a restitution payment of $10.8 million. But most interesting, Stanley has also agreed to cooperate with the government to determine who else may have violated the FCPA. Normally, an agreement to cooperate would be made in order to catch bigger fish. In this case, Stanley was a very big fish. There is one more extra large fish out there that I would love to see caught in this net. I think we all know who that might be.
According to The FCPA Blog,
Stanley was a senior vice president of Dresser Industries, Inc. when it merged into Halliburton in September 1998. Dresser's wholly-owned construction subsidiary, Kellogg, was combined with Halliburton's construction subsidiary, Brown & Root, Inc., to form KBR. Stanley became CEO of KBR and was named chairman in 2001. He was fired in June 2004. In November 2006, Halliburton spun KBR off and it became a separate publicly-traded company. Vice President Dick Cheney was Halliburton's chief executive from 1995 to 2000.
http://fcpablog.blogspot.com/...
KBR is the largest contractor for the U.S. Army and is currently the world's largest defense services provider. This story is definitely one worth watching.