by Deb Cupples | The Financial Times reports:
"Kellogg, Brown & Root, the engineering, construction, and services company, and its former parent, Halliburton, have agreed to pay a combined $579m 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 $800m US settlement by Siemens, the German conglomerate."
Ironically, this is the same KBR that recently got $35 million in federal government contracts to do electrical work -- despite its allegedly dismal past performance. Of what do I speak?
KBR allegedly did shoddy electrical work in Iraq that seems to have led to 283 fires and the death of 16 U.S. soldiers since 2004: some soldiers were electrocuted in showers, some in swimming pools, some while washing military vehicles.
For details on the bribery-related settlement and misdeeds, see the Justice Department's press release.
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* Inspector Blocked Investigations of Contractor Fraud and Waste?
* Defense Dept. Rewarding Bad Contractor Performance?
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