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NEW YORK, USA - THE Iraqi government sued dozens of companies including oil giant Chevron that it said paid kickbacks to former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's regime under the United Nations oil-for-food programme.
The civil lawsuit seeks to recover damages from companies investigated by a UN-commissioned inquiry, claiming they cheated the Iraqi people out of the benefits of the US$67 billion (S$91 billion) UN programme.
The UN oil-for-food programme, which ran from 1996 to 2003, was created to help Iraqis cope with UN sanctions after Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990. The programme allowed Baghdad to sell oil in order to buy humanitarian goods.
The lawsuit says billions of dollars were lost 'all of which were directly translatable into food, medicine and other humanitarian goods that were supposed to reach the Iraqi people'.
Among the individuals named in the lawsuit are Texas oilmen Oscar Wyatt and David Chalmers, who both admitted paying millions of dollars in kickbacks to Saddam's regime.
But a UN-commissioned inquiry headed by former United States Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker found the programme was corrupted by 2,200 companies from 66 countries that paid US$1.8 billion in kickbacks to Iraqi officials to win supply deals.
The lawsuit follows US criminal investigations into the programme, which produced the convictions of individuals, including Wyatt and Chalmers, and oil companies named in the complaint, including Chevron, which agreed to pay US$30 million to resolve criminal and civil liabilities.
Other companies named in the lawsuit include BNP Paribas, and drug makers GlaxoSmithKline, and Roche Holding.
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