Business Mag Expose Says Koch Brothers Were Supplying Iran In Possible Violation of U.S. Trade Embargo
enlarge It’s interesting that we’d only see a story like this in a business publication , and not a news magazine. Hmm… In a bold and spectacular move, Bloomberg Markets Magazine wrote a story titled “The secret sins of Koch Industries” which does not only focus on several new revelations, but also provides a comprehensive overview about scandals of Koch Industries which happened during the last decades. The story also explicitly puts the well known political activities of the Koch Brothers in context with their highly questionable behaviour in business. No less than 15 Bloomberg journalists in several countries have worked on it. It is fascinating to see that such a major investigative piece about a highly political issue does appear in a business magazine and not in one of the more “traditional” political magazines or newspapers. Next to Jane Mayer’s ground breaking piece about the Koch Brothers in the New Yorker , this article by Bloomberg Markets Magazine undoubtedly represents another PR disaster for the Koch Brothers, and could also have severe consequences. Bloomberg Markets Magazine reveals in this article for example that: – Koch Industries used the European offices of their subsidiary Koch-Glitsch to sell millions of dollars of petrochemical equipment to Iran in an apparent violation of the US-Iran trade embargo, as recently as 2007 – Internal documents of Koch Industries prove that the company took elaborate steps to ensure that their US-employees weren’t involved in the sales to Iran – While is not 100% certain at this point that Koch Industries did in fact violate US law, according to Bloomberg Markets Magazine, internal memos show for example that the details of the sales with Iran were meticulously checked by US lawyers of Koch Industries and coordinated with the lawyers in order to fully ensure that no visible involvement of US-citizens took place – Koch Industries paid bribes in six countries from 2002 to 2008 to win business in Africa, India and the Middle East, comparable to similar behaviour of German technology giant Siemens (Siemens subsequently had to pay a $ 1.6 billion fine!) – Koch Industries sacked a compliance officer in France in June 2009 who discovered the illegal bribes at Koch Industries subsidiary Koch-Glitsch – These revelations were made possible through newly discovered documents from two labour court cases in France – Bloomberg Markets reveals that former employees of Koch Industries harshly criticize the company for their internal practices and ethics – The story also covers in great detail over several pages earlier violations of Koch Industries: The company in the past “rigged prices with competitors, lied to regulators and repeatedly run afoul of environmental regulations, resulting in five criminal convictions since 1999 in the U.S. and Canada.”
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on October 2, 2011. Filed under