Volvo workers quit over oil-for-food

By Paivi Munter and Mark Turner
January 17, 2006
The Financial Times
Original Source: http://news.ft.com/cms/s/f1a62584-878c-11da-8762-0000779e2340.html

Volvo Group, the Swedish truckmaker, said on Tuesday that a few executives involved in dealings criticised by the Volcker investigation into the oil-for-food scandal had left the company.
Marten Wikforss, a spokesman, said that several employees in the group’s construction equipment subsidiary had been disciplined for not raising questions about possible bribery by an agent helping it to secure deals with the former Iraqi regime between 2000 and 2001 under the United Nations’ programme.
“We found out that it was the agents, a Jordanian company called International Engineering Group (IEG), that paid them. We ceased to work with them already in 2002,” said Mr Wikforss. But he added: “We think a handful of people [within Volvo Construction Equipment] should have suspected that the agent might pay kickbacks. A couple of them have left the company and Leif Johansson, our chief executive, has stressed to those remaining the importance of sticking to our company’s code of conduct.”
Mohammad Al-Farraj, the general manager of IEG, told the Volcker commission, which published its final report last year, that he had personally paid kickbacks on behalf of Volvo Construction Equipment and that “no transactions were conducted without” the company’s full knowledge.
Volvo’s disclosure follows a decision by DaimlerChrysler to suspend at least six of its managers over the scandal.