flashback: Halliburton under Cheney doing business w/ Iran....Cayman Islands and Dubai

[maddezmom]

~snip~

That subsidiary, Halliburton Products and Services, Ltd., is wholly owned by the U.S.-based Halliburton and is registered in a building in the capital of the Cayman Islands – a building owned by the local Calidonian Bank. Halliburton and other companies set up in this Caribbean Island, because of tax and secrecy laws that are corporate friendly.

Halliburton is the company that Vice President Dick Cheney used to run. He was CEO from 1995 to 2000, during which time Halliburton Products and Services set up shop in Iran. Today, it sells about $40 million a year worth of oil field services to the Iranian government.

~snip~

In a letter to New York City Comptroller Thompson, Halliburton says its Cayman Island subsidiary is actually run out of Dubai. 60 Minutes went there and learned that it shares office space, phone and fax lines with a division of its U.S.-based parent company -- which raises more legal questions about its independence from Houston. But once again, our inquiries went unanswered.

In its letter to Thompson, Halliburton insists it is complying with all U.S. laws. But he and legal experts we consulted believe they are dancing right along the edge of legality.

more:http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/01/22/60minutes/main595214.shtml


Business As Usual?
Halliburton’s CEO says his company is pulling out of Iran. But a corporate subsidiary is still going ahead with a deal to develop Tehran’s natural gas fields

Newsweek
Updated: 6:10 p.m. ET Feb. 16, 2005
Feb. 16 - Only weeks before Halliburton made headlines by announcing it was pulling out of Iran—a nation George W. Bush has labeled part of the “axis of evil”—the Texas-based oil services firm quietly signed a major new business deal to help develop Tehran’s natural gas fields.

~snip~

The deal, diplomatic sources tell NEWSWEEK, was signed with an Iranian oil company whose principals include Sirus Naseri, Tehran’s chief international negotiator on matters relating to the country’s hotly-disputed nuclear enrichment program—a project the Bush administration has charged is intended to develop nuclear weapons.

~snip~

Halliburton has consistently argued that it is not in violation of U.S. sanctions law because Halliburton Products & Services Limited (which is registered in the Cayman Islands but located in Dubai) operates autonomously without direction from senior management in Houston. In documents the company has submitted to investigators, for example, Halliburton has stated that Halliburton Product & Services' 133 employes include no Americans and that its five-person board of directors includes four British citizens and one Canadian citizen; “none of them is a U.S. permanent resident alien” or green card holder. “Day to day management and decision-making responsibility at HPSL resides with the Management Director (who is a British citizen) and other local management, all of whom reside in Dubai.”

But other company documents and sources familiar with the Justice Department investigation suggest that, at the very least, U.S. government officials have had questions about the Dubai-based subsidiary’s “independence” for some time. Company disclosures show that the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control first questioned Halliburton about whether it was in compliance of U.S. sanctions against Iran as early as mid-2001. In January, 2004, Treasury raised the issue again after a "60 Minutes" report that Halliburton Products & Services was located in, and receiving mail, in the same Dubai office tower address where another of the company’s principal—and indisputably U.S.-controlled subsidiaries, Kellog Brown & Root—also had offices. This led, according to a company report filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, to a referral of the matter by Treasury to the Justice Department for a criminal investigation. Halliburton then received its first a grand jury subpoena for documents on September 16, 2004, according to the firm’s latest filing with the SEC.

more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6982444/site/newsweek/

[Ian David]

1. This is why Congress needs to pass an authorization to use force against The Cayman Islands

The Bob Soto Navy wouldn't stand a chance against us.

We'd kick their turtle-eating asses all the way to Jamaica and back.

[yurbud]

6. Yep--send the marines to secure the PO & safety deposit boxes and the 82nd Airborne

to seize the secret bank records

[yurbud]

7. then force the corporate bastards to buy all the troops umbrella drinks.

[whistle]

2. If it walks like Enron, and quacks like Enron and looks like Enron

...then it probably is just like Enron

[zbdent]

3. Unrelated note - Dubai was the terrorist-supporting country

that was able to buy ports in the US ... quietly approved weeks after the outrage made the news ...

[maddezmom]

5. here's the lastest I could find on that issue

AIG gets nod to buy U.S. ports
Officials completed their antitrust investigation of the deal with Dubai Ports World without taking action, according to the FTC.
February 22 2007: 12:15 PM EST


WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- U.S. antitrust authorities said Thursday they approved plans by insurer American International Group to buy the U.S. port facilities of state-owned Dubai Ports World.

Officials completed their antitrust investigation of the deal without taking any action, the Federal Trade Commission said in a notice.

DP World said in December it agreed to sell the facilities in New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Miami, Tampa and New Orleans to American International Group (down $0.45 to $69.24, Charts).

Dubai World plans 50% growth
The sale was arranged after U.S. lawmakers said control of U.S. port terminals by a state-owned Arab company could threaten national security.

A last-minute clash with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey threatened to derail the deal for the Newark Port container terminal.

DP World and the agency resolved the dispute last week, with AIG agreeing to invest a minimum of $50 million in the port over the life of its 23-year investment.

more:http://money.cnn.com/2007/02/22/news/aig_dubai.reut/index.htm?section=money_latest

[valerief]

4. Hell o' Burden has been one helluva burden on the U.S. nt