The CEO of French supermajor Total, Christophe de Margerie, is to face criminal charges of bribery and corruption in France in relation to the company’s conduct under the UN oil-for-food programme in Iraq during the rule of Saddam Hussein.
The case will be brought before the Paris criminal court in 2012 on the instigation of an investigating magistrate, a company spokesman confirmed yesterday.Â
Margerie, French senator Charles Pasqua and 17 others have been charged with offenses relating to misappropriation of corporate assets and accessories to the corruption of foreign public agents relating to the maladministration of the oil-for-food programme.
Total itself was indicted in 2010 on bribery charges as well as complicity and influence peddling.
Total is alleged to have paid bribes to officials in the Hussein regime and misused corporate funds in order to further profit from the oil for food program.
The Oil-for-Food Program was imposed on Iraq in 1995 and was designed to allow Iraq to export oil in return for the right to purchase food and humanitarian goods without violating a suite of international sanctions imposed on the country by the UN.Â
Throughout its existence, the programme was dogged by accusations that some of its profits were unlawfully diverted to the Hussein regime, UN officials, and others. According to a UN report, the program gave rise to corruption on an international, multi-billion dollar scale. Total says it had no knowledge of payments at the heart of the affair.
Christophe de Margerie was placed under formal investigation in 2006, before the criminal case was closed in 2007 and transferred to the prosecutors office, which recommended the case be dropped.
A UN report released in 2010 cleared Total of any wrongdoing. Total denies the charges.
