On 04-12-09, DAVE DRUM said to DAN CEPPA:



DC> The question still remains:  Were they no-bid contracts?


DC> BTW, George Brown, of the 'B' in KBR, was the majority owner.


News Archive


02.15.2009
News / KELLOGG BROWN & ROOT LLC PLEADS GUILTY TO FOREIGN BRIBERY CHARGES
AND AGREES TO PAY $402 MILLION CRIMINAL FINE


Enforcement Actions By DOJ and SEC Result in Penalties of $579 Million
for KBR’S Participation in a Scheme to Bribe Nigerian Government Officials
to Obtain Contracts


WASHINGTON – Kellogg Brown & Root LLC (KBR), a global engineering,
construction and services company based in Houston, pleaded guilty today
to charges related to the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) for its
participation in a decade-long scheme to bribe Nigerian government
officials to obtain engineering, procurement and construction (EPC)
contracts, Acting Assistant Attorney General Rita M. Glavin of the
Criminal Division announced. The EPC contracts to build liquefied
natural gas (LNG) facilities on Bonny Island, Nigeria, were valued at more
than $6
billion.


KBR entered guilty pleas to a five-count criminal information in federal
court in Houston before U.S. District Judge Keith P. Ellison. As part of
the plea agreement, KBR agreed to pay a $402 million criminal fine.


According to court documents, KBR was part of a four-company joint
venture that was awarded four EPC contracts by Nigeria LNG Ltd. (NLNG) between
1995 and 2004 to build LNG facilities on Bonny Island. The
government-owned Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) was the
largest shareholder of NLNG, owning 49 percent of the company.


KBR pleaded guilty to conspiring with its joint-venture partners and
others to violate the FCPA by authorizing, promising and paying bribes
to a range of Nigerian government officials, including officials of the
executive branch of the Nigerian government, NNPC officials, and NLNG
officials, to obtain the EPC contracts. KBR also pleaded guilty to four
counts of violating the FCPA related to the joint venture’s payment of
tens of millions of dollars in "consulting fees" to two agents for use
in bribing Nigerian government officials.


KBR admitted that, at crucial junctures before the award of the EPC
contracts, KBR’s former CEO, Albert "Jack" Stanley, and others met with
three successive former holders of a top-level office in the executive
branch of the Nigerian government to ask the office holder to designate
a representative with whom the joint venture should negotiate bribes to
Nigerian government officials. Stanley and others negotiated bribe
amounts with the office holders’ representatives and agreed to hire the two
agents to pay the bribes. According to court documents, the joint venture paid
approximately $132 million to the first agent, a consulting company
incorporated in Gibraltar, and more than $50 million to the second
agent, a global trading company headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, during the
course of the bribery scheme. KBR admitted that it had intended for these
agents’ fees to be used, in part, for bribes to Nigerian government officials.



Under the terms of the plea agreement, KBR agreed to retain an
independent compliance monitor for a three-year period to review the design
and implementation of KBR’s compliance program and to make reports to KBR
and the Department of Justice. KBR also agreed to cooperate with the
Department in its ongoing investigations.


In a related criminal case, Stanley pleaded guilty in September 2008 to
conspiring to violate the FCPA for his participation in the bribery
scheme. Stanley’s sentencing is currently scheduled for May 6, 2009.


Today, KBR’s parent company, KBR Inc., and its former parent company,
Halliburton Company, also reached a settlement of a related civil
complaint filed by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).


The SEC's complaint charged KBR Inc. with violating the FCPA’s anti-bribery
provisions, and charged KBR and Halliburton with engaging in books and
records and internal controls violations related to the bribery. KBR
Inc. and Halliburton jointly agreed to pay $177 million in disgorgement of
profits relating to those violations.


"Today's guilty plea by KBR ends one chapter in the Department’s
long-running investigation of corruption in the award of $6 billion in
construction contracts in Nigeria. This bribery scheme involved both
senior foreign government officials and KBR corporate executives who
took actions to insulate themselves from the reach of U.S. law enforcement,"
said Acting Assistant Attorney General Rita M. Glavin of the Criminal
Division. "The successful prosecution of KBR, and its agreement to pay a
more than $400 million fine, demonstrates that no one is above the law,
and that the Department is determined to seek penalties that are
commensurate with, and will deter, this kind of serious criminal
misconduct."


"This case, which represents the second largest fine ever in an FCPA
prosecution, demonstrates the FBI’s continued commitment to aggressively
investigate violations of this law," said Andrew R. Bland III, Special
Agent in Charge of the FBI’s Houston Field Office. "We will continue to
investigate these matters by working in partnership with other law
enforcement agencies, both foreign and domestic, to ensure that
corporate executives who have been found guilty of bribing foreign officials
in return for lucrative business contracts, are punished to the full extent
of the law."


"FCPA violations have been and will continue to be dealt with severely
by the SEC and other law enforcement agencies," said SEC Chairman Mary
Schapiro. "Any company that seeks to put greed ahead of the law by
making illegal payments to win business should beware that we are working
vigorously across borders to detect and punish such illicit conduct."

The criminal case is being prosecuted by Senior Trial Attorneys William
J. Stuckwisch and Patrick F. Stokes of the Criminal Division’s Fraud
Section, with investigative assistance from the FBI and IRS-Criminal
Investigation in Houston. The Criminal Division’s Office of International
Affairs provided substantial assistance in gathering evidence abroad and
facilitating international cooperation. Significant assistance was
provided by the SEC’s Division of Enforcement and by the authorities in
France, Italy, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.



DD>ZINGO!

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*Durango b301 #PE*