Enron Probe Focuses on Alleged Bribes Abroad
WASHINGTON,
August 5 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - U.S. federal prosecutors
are investigating whether collapsed energy giant Enron had been
bribing foreign government officials to win contracts for its
operations abroad, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday, August 5.
The
previously undisclosed inquiry is examining Enron’s efforts to win
foreign pipeline, power and water-privatization projects, some
reaching as far back as the mid-1990s, in possible violation of the
Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, said the report, citing officials and
lawyers close to the case.
Amid
allegations by the World Bank and others of government favoritism, in
some countries, projects were awarded to Enron without competitive
bidding, or assets were acquired at below-market values, the Journal
said.
Enron
has denied ever paying bribes, and says that it has “a clear
anticorruption policy prohibiting the payment, solicitation and
receipt of bribes in any form.”
The
Houston company has said that some of the bribery allegations have
been falsely brought by commercial rivals or by local political
opponents. “It’s not uncommon for any business to encounter these
kinds of charges, especially in the developing world,” said, a
spokesman for Enron Global Services, the division under which
Enron’s international operations fall.
News
agencies report the Justice Department’s Enron Task Force is
examining the energy company’s non-U.S. operations for possible
criminal violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.
Under
the Act, the corporation could face stiff fines if convicted.
According
to the paper, the corruption inquiry could turn up the heat on a new
cast of former executives, including Rebecca Mark, who helped build
Enron’s international operations.
Mark
served as chief of Enron’s international group through 1998 and then
headed its water subsidiary, Azurix, before leaving Enron in 2000 and
selling her Enron stake valued at more than $80 million, The Journal
said.
Enron
filed for bankruptcy last year after it collapsed amid accounting
irregularities, reports news agencies.
Enron
Global Services include some of the company’s remaining valuable
assets and were excluded from its Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing last
year, according to the report.
The
foreign projects the company was involved in range from power plants
in Poland and the Philippines to a gas pipeline that is being built in
the Bolivian jungle.
Claims
of corruption in Enron power or water projects have also arisen over
the years in countries such as Ghana, Colombia, Panama, Nigeria and
the Dominican Republic, the paper said.
|
