Bribery, Fraud & Tax Evasion

An Alabama company controlled by a billionaire Kuwaiti family is the biggest supplier of guns to Iraq. These weapons were paid for by the Pentagon which has lost track of them. A new Amnesty international report says that such unrestrained global arms trading schemes may have catastrophic human rights consequences. Read More

West Virginia Governor Joe Manchin III filed a friend-of-the-court brief in June, arguing the State Supreme Court should review a $382 million judgment against DuPont. The case involves thousands of residents in the area of a DuPont-operated zinc-smelting plant, and the largest civil penalty ever levied against the company, for the dumping of toxic arsenic, cadmium and lead at the plant. Read More

England's House of Lords ruled that the Serious Fraud Office was lawful in its actions to halt investigations into allegations that BAE Systems ran a £60m "slush fund" and offered sweeteners to officials from Saudi Arabia in return for lucrative contracts. Read More

According to documents seen by the Financial Times, BAE Systems has been linked to Zimbabwean arms trader John Bredenkamp. BAE reportedly paid at least £20m to Bredenkamp via offshore entities in the British Virgin Islands between 2003 and 2005. The payments raise fresh questions about bribery in BAE's dealings. Read More

Residents of Bhopal, India continue to suffer from Union Carbide's toxic legacy, this time in the form of toxic waste that still languishes inside a shoddy warehouse on the old factory grounds. Ailments such as cleft palates and mental retardation are appearing in numbers of Bhopali children, raising questions about contaminated soil and groundwater, clean-up, and liability. Read More

The Bush administration has disclosed that U.S. advisors in Iraq played a key role in drawing up contracts between the Iraqi government and five major Western oil companies. The no-bid contracts are expected to be awarded Monday to Exxon Mobil, Shell, BP, Total and Chevron, as well as to several smaller oil companies. Read More

Sending shockwaves through the Swiss financial industry, banking giant UBS is facing accusations from a former senior banker in US courts of massive fraud and corruption. UBS is alleged to have engaged in routine activities aimed at helping its high net worth clients evade hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes, among other matters. Read More

On June 23, James Hansen, a leading world climate scientist, called for the executives of major fossil fuel companies, including ExxonMobil and Peabody Energy, to be put on trial for crimes against humanity and nature through actions like funding climate skeptics to undermine global consensus around combating climate change. Read More

The Army official who managed the Pentagon's largest contract in Iraq says he was ousted from his job when he refused to approve paying more than $1 billion in questionable charges to KBR, the Houston-based company that has provided food, housing and other services to American troops. Read More

A BBC investigation estimates that around $23bn (£11.75bn) may have been lost, stolen or just not properly accounted for in Iraq. Read More