GE to pay 23 million dollars after Iraq bribery charges
Via: Raw Story- By Agence France-Presse
Tuesday, July 27th, 2010 — 12:57 pm
US industrial titan General Electric has agreed to pay over 23 million dollars to settle allegations that it bribed Iraqi officials, a US financial watchdog said on Tuesday.
GE had been accused by the Securities and Exchange Commission of being part of “a 3.6 million dollar kickback scheme with Iraqi government agencies to win contracts to supply medical equipment and water purification equipment.”
Four subsidiaries of the Connecticut-based company were accused of bribing officials at the Iraqi ministries of health and oil, trading cash, computer equipment and medical supplies to win lucrative contracts.
The SEC said the four GE units — two of which were not part of the firm when the alleged bribery took place — earned around 18.4 million dollars as a direct result of the kickbacks.
“Bribes and kickbacks are bad business, period,” said Robert Khuzami, the head of the SEC’s Division of Enforcement.
Seems to be common practice in the defense industry biz. GE used to be a fine old company when it produced the electric fan and the first electric refrigerater. Now it’s just another defense industry and is an integral part of the military-corpo-industrial-complex… 😉