Switzerland: 8 firms condemned in oil-for-food probe

The Associated Press
March 18, 2008
The International Herald Tribune 
Original Source: http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/03/18/europe/EU-FIN-Switzerland-Oil-For-Food.php
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/03/18/europe/EU-FIN-Switzerland-Oil-For-Food.php \l # \o Click to view map BERN, Switzerland:
 Swiss authorities said Tuesday they have confiscated more than US$17 million (¬ 10.8 million) from eight firms found guilty of wrongdoing in the U.N. oil-for-food scandal.
The federal prosecutors' office did not name any of the companies involved. A previo
us investigation led by former U.S. Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker said about 40 Swiss companies were among more than 2,200 worldwide who paid a total of US$1.8 billion in kickbacks to Saddam Hussein's government under the U.N.-administered program.
In a statement, the prosecutors' office said 21 investigations had been dropped due to lack of evidence, and that seven cases were pending in cantonal (state) courts.
It said the eight companies were found guilty of violating Swiss embargo laws but did not give dates for the convictions. They would have been after January 2007 when a previous update by the prosecutors' office said no charges had been laid against any companies.
Volcker's report from 2005 cited a number of Swiss companies by name, including engineering firm ABB Ltd., pharmaceutical giants Novartis AG and Roche Ltd., and oil trading firms Glencore International AG, Vitol SA and Taurus Petroleum, which has a trading office in Geneva.
All companies denied paying kickbacks.
The Volcker commission also criticized a company founded by Marc Rich, the fugitive commodities trader controversially pardoned by U.S. President Bill Clinton before leaving office in 2001.
But authorities have cleared the Marc Rich Group of wrongdoing, according to the company.
Federal prosecutors found no evidence of misconduct, it said in a statement Tuesday.
Jeannette Balmer, a spokeswoman for the prosecutors' office, declined to comment.
Rich, once on the FBI's Most Wanted List, fled from the United States in 1983 after he was indicted by a U.S. federal grand jury on more than 50 counts of fraud, racketeering, trading with Iran during the U.S. Embassy hostage crisis and evading more than US$48 million in income taxes.
Volcker blamed shoddy U.N. management and the world's most powerful nations for allowing corruption in the US$64 billion program, which was meant to provide Iraq with humanitarian goods despite the embargo on Saddam's regime between 1996 and 2003.