Leaked Emails Reveal Widespread Corruption in Global Oil Industry (theage.com.au)

Nick McKenzie, Richard Baker, Michael Bachelard, and Daniel Quinlan report on a widespread corruption in the global oil industry for The Huffington Post: In the list of the world's great companies, Unaoil is nowhere to be seen. But for the best part of the past two decades, the family business from Monaco has systematically corrupted the global oil industry, distributing many millions of dollars worth of bribes on behalf of corporate behemoths including Samsung, Rolls-Royce, Halliburton and Australia's own Leighton Holdings. A massive leak of confidential documents has for the first time exposed the true extent of corruption within the oil industry, implicating dozens of leading companies, bureaucrats and politicians in a sophisticated global web of bribery and graft. After a six-month investigation across two continents, Fairfax Media and The Huffington Post can reveal that billions of dollars of government contracts were awarded as the direct result of bribes paid on behalf of firms including British icon Rolls-Royce, US giant Halliburton, Australia's Leighton Holdings and Korean heavyweights Samsung and Hyundai.

Comments

Shocking!

[AmiMoJo]

Big oil is corrupt?! I'm shocked! Shocked I tell you!

Re:Shocking!

[mi]

Yeah. This would never, ever happen to solar-panel manufacturers — nor any other government-sponsored industry.

Re:Shocking!

[PopeRatzo]

Institutions that are the major state-run industry of the most authoritarian and least free countries in the world?

I think you may have that backwards. At least in the case of the US, the oil industry isn't state run. The state is run by the oil industry.

Re:Shocking!

[Moof123]

Now if anyone of note actually goes to jail, then I actually will be shocked.

I won't be holding my breath.

Re:Shocking!

[MightyMartian]

Skeptics of AGW are blessed by God, who loves oil. God would never allow burning of carbon-based fuels to increase CO2 levels, and God would never allow CO2 to alter surface temperatures. Why are you upset? I'm just repeating what you believe, right? That fossil fuels have absolutely no downside, and it is impossible for CO2 to alter climate.

Oh I get it, it's because you think I'm a secret AGW supporter. I'm not. I'm a fucking idiot,. just like you.

Disingenuous HuffPo Trash passing as journalism

[clonehappy]

As usual.

The headline should read Widespread Corruption in Humans.

Find me one group of powerful people, be it ANY industry, ANY government, ALL of academia, ALL banking/financial, whatever sector you want to pick, one place where multiple people have stood to gain through backroom deals and collusion where is hasn't/doesn't consistently happen.

Humans work to benefit their own ends, Film at 11.

Re:Disingenuous HuffPo Trash passing as journalism

[MightyMartian]

What exactly is your point?

bribery go-between

[phantomfive]

It looks like the company (Unaoil) is acting as a "bribery go-between," when oil companies want to drill in oil-rich countries, they contract out the necessary bribery to Unaoil.

Is it really necessary to bribe officials in oil-rich countries?

Re:bribery go-between

[Archangel Michael]

Bribes in some countries are required "business expenses". They are required, because to not include them prevents deals. The fact that the US outlaws this practice doesn't stop those countries from expecting it. It is how you get it soccer in Qatar (Thanks FIFA!) Pay enough tot he right people, and shit gets done.

Which is pretty much the opposite of the US, where you pay government huge amounts of money to have shit stopped up and prevented, we call them Campaign Contributions, or donations to ExPresidents (and presidential candidate) "Foundation" and they are perfectly legal .

Why do we act shocked? Because we're simply ignorant of how the real world actually works.

Are you surprised by the following headlines?

[irrational_design]

Leaked Emails Reveal Widespread Corruption in Global Oil Industry
Leaked Emails Reveal Widespread Corruption in Government
Leaked Emails Reveal Widespread Corruption in Major Corporation
Leaked Emails Reveal Widespread Corruption in Academic Research
Leaked Emails Reveal Widespread Corruption in Some Church
Leaked Emails Reveal Widespread Corruption in Scientific Community
Leaked Emails Reveal Widespread Corruption in HOA
Leaked Emails Reveal Widespread Corruption in Any Human Organization

The dull surprise is almost overwhelming!

[Chas]

I'm not sure if I'll be able to concentrate after being THIS gobsmacked...

Fuck. This is like saying "Water is wet." or "Fire is hot." or "Politicians are full of shit."

It's pretty much a given. Like gravity.

Re:The dull surprise is almost overwhelming!

[Anonymous Coward]

And that's precisely what the oil industry is relying on: your contempt of them. Since you're already used to the fact that they're corrupt, they get to live with it and keep making $$$. Not like you're going to do anything about it because you're already treating it like a fact of life.

Re:Keep in mind

[MightyMartian]

Financial or other types of inducements that invite a person in a position of authority to abuse their lawful or fiduciary obligations in return for special treatment or favors.

If you're on trial and I give your lawyer $100,000 to deliberately undermine your case, I have committed bribery. If I go to a county or municipal building inspector and hand him the keys to a new Rolls Royce in return for him rubber stamping a building I'm constructing, that is a bribe. If I give a government procurement agent a million dollars to assure that I win the bidding on a government contract, that is a bribe.

You will notice that in all these cases the act involves the inducement an individual to compromise their legal or fiduciary duty, not to mention that others are directly harmed. In the first case, you, as the defendant, are very seriously harmed by your lawyer taking the bribe and screwing you over. In the second and third cases, it involves suborning a public official who has a legal duty to act only in the best interests of the state (and by extension, society as a whole).

You are certainly free to try to tell a judge that bribery has no real meaning, but I can assure you, it does, and your defense would amount to little more than standing up and going "DUHHHHHH..."

And the winner is?

[duckintheface]

Former Vice President Dick Cheney, who at the time referenced in the leaked documents was CEO of Halliburton. Oh, he is also a war criminal.

Cut it OUT with the Capt. Renault attitude

[rbrander]

What if everybody had the attitude of "well, this is a screwed-up world we live in, what can you do, (nothing), let's turn to the sports" about everything?

"King George wants us to suffer taxation without representation, surprise, surprise, well, duh." - there'd be no America.

"Big deal, this stuff happens, no need for major efforts to change" was the attitude of all those Bishops and Cardinals to kids getting buggered.

We SHOULD react with shock and disgust to lying and fraud in the financial industry, to corruption in oil, to military vendors promoting war; we should tell our politicians they're unemployed unless they act and can have all the money they need to sic 10,000 FBI agents on them.

The S&L crisis in the 80's prompted the assignment of 1000 FBI agents to the case. They brought in about one conviction each: 1000 convictions, a 90% success rate, after winnowing down 30,000 referrals to 1100-odd trials. It brought about real results.

By contrast, the 2008 crisis prompted no such effort despite being 70X as large a set of frauds.

We can tackle these large problems; you just put out the same effort you'd put into a new highway interchange or skyscraper: $100M budget per year and a few thousand people working on it. The US Justice System has nearly one million employees; only 2300 on white-collar crime.