Total and CEO acquitted in Iraq oil-for-food scandal
Aids UN programme mired by kickbacks and illicit payments
French oil giant Total was acquitted on Monday of corruption charges related to the UN oil-for-food programme in Iraq by a Paris criminal court.
The court also cleared 18 individuals, including Total CEO Christophe de Margerie who was accused of misusing assets in the decade-old case into corruption in the programme, in which an illicit US$1.8 billion flowed to Saddam Hussein’s government.
Swiss oil trader Vitol was found not guilty of corrupting foreign public agents and Charles Pasqua, an ex-French interior minister, was cleared of passive peddling of influence and corrupting foreign public agents.
Designed to ease the suffering of the Iraqi people, the oil-for-food programme allowed Iraq to sell some of its oil, despite the embargo imposed after the first Gulf war, in exchange for humanitarian goods.
The programme became mired in controversy after an independent inquiry, led by the former US Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker, disclosed in 2005 a system of kickbacks, surcharges and payments to individuals with access to Iraqi oil.
Total, Europe’s third-largest oil group by market capitalisation, was accused of bribery, complicity and influence peddling during the 1996-2003 programme.