More Oil - For - Food Probes May Be Launched 
The Associated Press
November 16, 2005
The New York Times
Original Source: http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/business/AP-Switzerland-Oil-For-Food.html

BERN, Switzerland (AP) -- Swiss authorities may launch criminal investigations into the conduct of several dozen companies in connection with the United Nations' oil-for-food program in Iraq, officials said Wednesday.
Switzerland's Economics Ministry has asked prosecutors to examine evidence against companies named in a U.N.-backed report on alleged oil-for-food corruption and decide whether to open formal investigations, spokeswoman Rita Baldegger told The Associated Press.
About 40 Swiss companies were named in the U.N. probe, including engineering firm ABB Ltd. and pharmaceutical giants Novartis AG and Roche Ltd., as well as commodity traders Glencore International AG, Vitol and Marc Rich Group.
''It can be about breaking the embargo law, just as much as about corruption,'' Othmar Wyss, an official responsible for export control and sanctions at the Economics Ministry, told the AP.
Wyss declined to specify how many of the companies named in the October U.N. report are located in Switzerland or how many could be involved in any investigation.
The Federal Prosecutor's Office has received the ministry's written request and will undertake the necessary measures, spokesman Hansjuerg Mark Wiedmer said, but declined to go into further detail.
Switzerland has already launched a criminal investigation focusing on four people connected to the oil-for-food program in Iraq, and has frozen bank accounts containing ''several million francs'' (dollars; euros) in connection with that inquiry. No charges have been filed.
Authorities already have fined a Geneva-based oil-trading company 50,000 Swiss francs (about $40,000; 32,000 euros) for paying kickbacks under the oil-for-food program, but have declined to name the firm.
The Justice Ministry also said Wednesday that the United States has asked Switzerland for legal help in connection with a separate oil-for-food investigation.
The oil-for-food program was established in 1996 to help ordinary Iraqis suffering under U.N. sanctions imposed after Saddam's 1990 invasion of Kuwait. It allowed Iraq to sell oil, provided most of the proceeds were used to buy humanitarian goods, and has since become the target of several corruption investigations.