International Trade Law News

Attorneys representing the government of the Republic of Iraq have filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, NY against numerous companies and individuals involved in the United Nations oil-for-food program.

According to a Dow Jones report, the lawsuit, filed last Friday, alleged:

That the companies engaged in a conspiracy with members of Saddam Hussein's regime to corrupt the program "in order to reap the economic benefits of trading" under it, including paying billions of dollars in kickbacks to Hussein's government.

"Billions of dollars were lost, all of which were directly translatable into food, medicine and other humanitarian goods that were supposed to reach the Iraqi people," the lawsuit said. "The resulting damage in human suffering caused to the Republic of Iraq and to the people of Iraq is virtually incalculable.

The lawsuit is seeking $10 billion in damages.

Originally conceived as a temporary program to bring food and medicines to the Iraqi populace, the Oil-for-Food Program was established by the United Nations in 1995 and ran from 1996 to 2003 and approved more than $100 billion in transactions (over $64 billion in oil sales and nearly $39 billion for food).

The Independent Inquiry Committee (IIC) into the U.N. Oil-for-Food Program, commonly known as the Volcker Commission, found serious vulnerabilities in the program and stated that "its management were exploited by some within the United Nations and many outside it, including the Iraq regime, grievously damaging the reputation and credibility of the United Nations."

Labels: Iraq

Tuesday's edition of the The Australian newspaper reports that the AWB Limited "will lose its 67-year-old monopoly over wheat exports" as a result of the illegal payments that it made to the Government of Iraq during the U.N. Oil-For-Food Program (OFFP). The article also notes that a fourth class action lawsuit has been brought against the AWB and its U.S. affiliate in New York, "this time by US winter wheat farmers seeking millions of dollars in damages over the Iraq kickbacks scandal."

In November 2006, an Australian Government inquiry looking into Australian companies role in the OFFP found that AWB knowingly paid prohibited inland transportation fees to a Jordanian company that routed the payments to the Iraqi Government. The Office of the Independent Inquiry into the U.N. Oil-for-Food Programme (Volcker Commission) found that AWB was the biggest single source of kickbacks made to the Iraqi government.

Labels: Iraq