Cost Of Halliburton Corruption Well Over 10 Billion
Halliburton: The company has effectively made a business model of crooked dealing with the U.S. government. Getting caught, over and over, doesn't seem to affect things much. In February, the U.S. Army agreed to pay Halliburton's KBR subsidiary nearly $2 billion for work that nobody can prove ever took place. In March, the company revealed that the U.S. Justice Department opened a criminal inquiry into possible bid-rigging on foreign contracts by Halliburton. In June, at a Congressional hearing, Bunnatine H. Greenhouse, then the senior contracting specialist with the Army Corps of Engineers, testified, "I can unequivocally state that the abuse related to contracts awarded to KBR [Halliburton's subsidiary] represents the most blatant and improper contract abuse I have witnessed during the course of my professional career." And the list of abuses goes on and on ...
KPMG: KPMG "admitted to criminal wrongdoing in the largest-ever tax shelter fraud," said U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales in August. KPMG managed to escape with no conviction or plea agreement, thanks to a "deferred prosecution" agreement by which the firm promised to pay $456 million in fines, restitution and penalties and do better in the future. That won't quite make up for the harm the company inflicted. According to the government, "KPMG has admitted that it engaged in a fraud that generated at least $11 billion in phony tax losses which, according to court papers, cost the United States at least $2.5 billion in evaded taxes." |
