bb energy corruption

ZR Group and Mr. Rahmeh were unlawfully indicted on a number of charges, of which all but one have been dropped. Sonatrach has been involved in at least two major corruption cases in the past decade, both of which involved the payment of bribes to company employees and officials. Dominic Cummings, Boris Johnsons former senior adviser, says that the attempt to discredit the system that found then MP Owen Paterson guilty was really about the PM and his own lies. When he was appointed, Hayes said he would advise the company on strategic plans in the context of changes in the worldwide energy market. The Lincolnshire MP recently criticised the governments plan to bring forward a ban on selling new petrol and diesel cars, saying that a delay would allow fossil fuels to become even cleaner. As ordinary people lost their jobs and relied on furlough, many MPs increased their income from the start of the pandemic. The family controls BB Energy, a conglomerate founded in Lebanon in 1937 that buys and sells 16 million metric tons of crude and derivatives each year. Translation by Joelle El Khoury. Twice he was found in breach of the rules on declarations of benefits. Please enable JavaScript in your browser to submit the form, - | 01.03.2023. A former Conservative minister who has criticised climate change policies and joined calls to restart fracking has been paid 150,000 by an oil firm, openDemocracy can reveal. At parliament we will try to make sure that high level responsibility is also explored - including all the ministers who stayed silent over the years., Fuel import scandal shows why transparency matters. The inspectorate registered many irregularities and estimated that this branchs deals with the parent company, Sonatrach, and the ministry of defence involved inflated bills. MP and former Tory energy minister John Hayes has been paid 150,000 by oil firm BB Energy over three years. That the energy industry carries heightened corruption risks is well documented: when the OECD analysed 427 anti-bribery enforcement actions in 2014, they found that almost one in five related to the extractive industries. BB Energy registered a company in Texas, BB Energy USA LLC., in 2014. This was on top of his standard MP salary of nearly 82,000. The contract may be summarized as follows: Sonatrach will give its name to the shipments of Baha Bassatne, who buys fuel from the Swiss company Vitol, for 3.5 dollars per metric ton, while he makes 25 dollars as profit in his deals with the end customer in Lebanon. The Lebanese National News Agency announced that the attorney-general of Mount Lebanon, Ghada Aoun, issued arrest warrants against 17 people working in the fuel sector because of import irregularities. Then Paterson resigned, cancelling future parliamentary votes. The biggest donor is Aquind, . Reliance has said that in September 2012 it signed a 15-year deal to purchase up to 400,000 barrels a day of heavy crude from PDVSA. This is why parliament cannot be relied on for fundamental climate action. He has also compared climate activists to radical Islam. ZR Energy DMCC wrote on its website, ZR Energy DMCC and Mr. Zaouk are incidental victims of this sinister power struggle.. All the other commercial activities were not affected by any sanctions because these regulations do not exist as such, he wrote in an email, adding that Mexico, Canada and the European Union have laws prohibiting their citizens and companies from obeying U.S. sanctions on Cuba. Records of a meeting in Dubai in March of 2011 reflect a decision to significantly reduce the capital of BB Naft, held by BB Energy Holdings NV., from $8 million to $1.050 million. 2022 LOrient-Le Jour. The London branch of the Algerian Sonatrach published a statement through the Algerian News Agency, saying that whoever was presented by the media as an employee of Sonatrach is not, in fact, an employee in the company, but an independent marine agent who monitors shipments in Lebanon for the benefit of the companys branch in London. The Algerian company tried to imply that the issue is limited to the technical specifications of the fuel. However, the criminal court announced his innocence to the Algeria Judicial Council, which was concerned with the ongoing investigations in the second Sonatrach case. The Sunday Times newspaper has revealed a phone call on 9 April last year between Paterson and the Tory peer Lord Bethell, who was the minister responsible for handing out contracts. Which groups shape the stories we see in the press; which voices are silenced, and why? The Lebanese judiciary expanded investigation into the fuel import file, and considered that the Algerian company charges commissions just because it is a front for the actual fuel supplier. A zero tolerance approach to any deviance from such requirement is adopted throughout the group. Formed in the 1960s, the group's activities span six continents. The documents reveal previously unknown details about the Cuban governments economic maneuvers abroad and the foreign companies that do business with Havana as some of the firms tried to hide Cubas hand in business deals to skirt the U.S. embargo. ZR Group Holding SAL and ZR Energy DMCC are two separate corporate entities. That the committee review and comment on proposed and ongoing work to reduce fuel poverty. Peter Quinter, an expert on U.S. embargo laws and former head of the International Law section of the Florida Bar Association, said the U.S. trade embargo on Cuba generally bars a company with a U.S. presence from doing business with Cuba directly or indirectly through an offshore branch, for example. The Bassatne family incorporated BB Naft Trading S.A. in Panama, with Jrgen Mossack as a director. The case is now with the Mount Lebanon Criminal Court, presided over by Mohamad Mortada. NAFT TRADING S.A. Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. After the Reuters story ran, Rosneft strongly denied the report, describing it as a blatant lie and a provocation against Rosneft. At BB Energy, we are constantly evolving in order to meet new challenges, while developing our personnel to ensure a competitive edge. Regardless of whether payments flowed directly to PDVSA or remained in Russia to pay down debt, the proposed approach appears to present no violation of sanctions by any of the entities because no U.S. citizens, currency, companies or financial institutions seem to be involved, according to four sanctions experts consulted by Reuters. Image: Cables of the electric generators in the Lebanese capital BeirutCredit: ANWAR AMRO/AFP via Getty Images, except East and Southern Africa & West and Central Africa. Sonatrach started supplying fuel to Lebanon in 2005. Published by Larkham Printers & Publishers Ltd, Correspondence address: PO Box 74955, London E16 9EJ | company registered in England & Wales, number: 1335756, registered address: 71-75 Shelton Street London WC2H 9JQ. But so much of the criticism is phrased as a defence of parliamentary standards and the good name of British democracy. The CEEC was set up after H&F Council declared a climate and ecological emergency in July 2019. According to an undated internal PDVSA document, Indias Reliance Industries Ltd - PDVSAs largest cash-paying client was also asked by PDVSA to pay Rosneft directly in April for oil sales under a long-term supply contract with the Venezuelan company. This entire case rests on false assumptions backed up by entirely fabricated charges. They escaped after senior adviser Dominic Cummings showed there was one law for the rich and another for the rest. Labour supports essentially the same system as now. Since the Tories takeover of parliament in 2010, nine of the partys former treasurerswho donated huge amountswere given a position as a Lord. Laurence Robertson . The company opened an office in Cuba, he explained, because he has been a resident of Havana like his wife and three children, all of them born in Cuba and Cuban citizens. One Bloomberg report showed BB Energy had $10 billion in revenues in 2012. The offer letter, seen by Reuters with its date redacted, said that Rosneft had agreed with PDVSA to pay BB Energys $26 million debt to the Venezuelan state oil company and then to seek payment from BB Energy via a bank transfer or an equivalent oil cargo. Both Mr. Rahmeh and ZR Group have been subjected to a politically motivated witch-hunt underpinned by a campaign to distract from Lebanons political failings. This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged. Ltd., after several rounds of negotiations with a number of companies, the official added. Under the new approach described to Reuters, Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA has at least twice asked its clients to make payments to Rosneft for Venezuelan oil, according to the documents. He also said Rahme was a friend but denied he was giving Rahme protection. Judge Aoun has charged 12 people in the case, including Electricite du Liban director-general Kamal Hayek for negligence of duty, and Hleiss and director of oil at the energy ministry Aurore Feghali for bribes and negligence of duty. Yahya Mawloud, the operations manager of Middle East Power, the company operating the reciprocating engines installed in Zouk and Jiyyeh where the tainted fuel was destined for, had sounded the alarm about the poor quality of fuel in March 2020. The Committee on Standards suggested Paterson should just be suspended from the Commons for 30 days. While former energy ministers who signed and renewed the contract have been questioned, they are not currently at the center of criminal investigations. The trial is a step in the right direction, he said. Plus, it is still not taking any of the precautions necessary today. 2. BB Naft did business with Cuba between 1992 and 2001, trading oil for sugar for $300 million, with credit facilities at low interest rate, Coronado wrote. The arrangement would also allow the cash-strapped Venezuelan state company to receive faster payment, sometimes avoiding the usual 30-to-90 day timeframe for completing oil transactions. The women pushing boundaries in Pakistans rural milk marketIn rural Pakistan women milk cows, but male relatives take the milk to male-run collection centres. Starting in the early 1990s, Cubas Ministry of Foreign Trade, through the Compaa Panamericana S.A, used Mossack Fonseca to create a string of disguised companies in Panama, the Bahamas and the British Virgin Islands that bought and sold medicines, cigars and food. This article was originally published in French. BB Energy is not known to be involved in fracking but says that it sells oil around the world - and is one of the largest traders in the Mediterranean. Last month, he also joined calls from Tory MPs to allow shale fracking to resume in the UK. LONDON, July 28 (Reuters) - Oil trading firm BB Energy has hired Jacques Erni as its new chief financial officer (CFO) starting Aug. 2 based in Dubai, the company said. One of the directors of both Curtdale and Ardpoint starting in 2011 was Hernn Aguilar Parra, executive director of Grupo Empresarial de Tabaco de Cuba, known as TABACUBA, the governments tobacco monopoly. They include BB Energy Trading Ltd., BB Energy Management S.A., BB Energy Holdings NV., BB Energy B.V., BB Energy (Asia) Pte. The managing team of Sonatrach, at that time, instructed Sonatrach Petroleum Corporation (London branch) to carry out the deal.The deal that was negotiated then created the branch of Sonatrach in London, a front for a Lebanese trader named Baha Bassatne, whose company (BB Energy) had been receiving a lions share of the profit margin obtained from these triangular business processes. Parliament is an unrepresentative, unaccountable front that covers for the real relations of power. And most trade union leaders went down the same path. PDVSAs contemplated payment agreement with Rosneft is part of a series of methods used by Maduros government to gain access to cash, including selling Central Bank gold reserves. The deal between the Lebanese and Algerian governments was to provide the Lebanese market mainly with heavy fuel oil to meet the needs of power plants, a fuel that Algeria does not produce in sufficient quantities, as the Algerian oil Saharan Blend is known for being a light crude type. From the beginning of the pandemic, Labour leader Keir Starmer spent nearly all his time agreeing with Boris Johnson in a show of national unity. Glencore has installed independent legal monitors to oversee its internal conduct as part of an agreement with the US government, marking a key milestone in the Swiss-based commodities house's . The similar logo and name are explained through an agreement between the two firms that gave ZR Energy DMCC the right to use the brand and credit facility of ZR Group Holding SAL. In his self-pitying resignation letter he blamed the cruel world of politics. BB Energy's global network of middle distillates comprises of a wide range of products, most prominently jet, kerosene, diesel and heating oil. The internal PDVSA document said the sales would allow the partial completion of the financial scheme of advanced payments between PDVSA and Rosneft. Its got through to him that there is a chance to inflict real blows on the Tories. Zaouk is connected to Rahmeh, however, through another company, ZR Energy SAL Offshore, of which Rahmeh is a majority stakeholder and which, along with Zaouk, has a share in ownership of the Lebanese firm Domaz Holding. For validation purposes and should be left unchanged lie and a provocation against Rosneft given a position as defence. 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