Koch Brothers Flout Law Getting Richer With Secret Iran Sales

Who are these guys and why have they declared war on Obama?

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/print...aw-getting-richer-with-secret-iran-sales.html

Koch Brothers Flout Law Getting Richer With Secret Iran Sales
By Asjylyn Loder and David Evans - Oct 3, 2011
Bloomberg Markets Magazine

In May 2008, a unit of Koch Industries Inc., one of the world’s largest privately held companies, sent Ludmila Egorova-Farines, its newly hired compliance officer and ethics manager, to investigate the management of a subsidiary in Arles in southern France. In less than a week, she discovered that the company had paid bribes to win contracts.

“I uncovered the practices within a few days,” Egorova- Farines says. “They were not hidden at all.”

She immediately notified her supervisors in the U.S. A week later, Wichita, Kansas-based Koch Industries dispatched an investigative team to look into her findings, Bloomberg Markets magazine reports in its November issue.

By September of that year, the researchers had found evidence of improper payments to secure contracts in six countries dating back to 2002, authorized by the business director of the company’s Koch-Glitsch affiliate in France.

“Those activities constitute violations of criminal law,” Koch Industries wrote in a Dec. 8, 2008, letter giving details of its findings. The letter was made public in a civil court ruling in France in September 2010; the document has never before been reported by the media.

Egorova-Farines wasn’t rewarded for bringing the illicit payments to the company’s attention. Her superiors removed her from the inquiry in August 2008 and fired her in June 2009, calling her incompetent, even after Koch’s investigators substantiated her findings. She sued Koch-Glitsch in France for wrongful termination.

Obsessed with Secrecy

Koch-Glitsch is part of a global empire run by billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, who have taken a small oil company they inherited from their father, Fred, after his death in 1967, and built it into a chemical, textile, trading and refining conglomerate spanning more than 50 countries.

Koch Industries is obsessed with secrecy, to the point that it discloses only an approximation of its annual revenue -- $100 billion a year -- and says nothing about its profits.

The most visible part of Koch Industries is its consumer brands, including Lycra fiber and Stainmaster carpet. Georgia- Pacific LLC, which Koch owns, makes Dixie cups, Brawny paper towels and Quilted Northern bath tissue.

Charles, 75, and David, 71, each worth about $20 billion, are prominent financial backers of groups that believe that excessive regulation is sapping the competitiveness of American business. They inherited their anti-government leanings from their father.

Abolishing Social Security

Fred was an early adviser to the founder of the anti- communist John Birch Society, which fought against the civil rights movement and the United Nations. Charles and David have supported the Tea Party, a loosely organized group that aims to shrink the size of government and cut federal spending.

These are long-standing tenets for the Kochs. In 1980, David Koch ran for vice president on the Libertarian ticket, pledging to abolish Social Security, the Federal Reserve System, welfare, minimum wage laws and federal agencies -- including the Department of Energy, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Central Intelligence Agency.

What many people don’t know is how the Kochs’ anti- regulation political ideology has influenced the way they conduct business.

A Bloomberg Markets investigation has found that Koch Industries -- in addition to being involved in improper payments to win business in Africa, India and the Middle East -- has sold millions of dollars of petrochemical equipment to Iran, a country the U.S. identifies as a sponsor of global terrorism.

The ‘Koch Method’

Internal company documents show that the company made those sales through foreign subsidiaries, thwarting a U.S. trade ban. Koch Industries units have also 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.

From 1999 through 2003, Koch Industries was assessed more than $400 million in fines, penalties and judgments. In December 1999, a civil jury found that Koch Industries had taken oil it didn’t pay for from federal land by mismeasuring the amount of crude it was extracting. Koch paid a $25 million settlement to the U.S.

Phil Dubose, a Koch employee who testified against the company said he and his colleagues were shown by their managers how to steal and cheat -- using techniques they called the Koch Method.

 

If these guys are stealing oil from Federal land and doing business with the Iranians, shouldn't they be in jail?

 

Fyi..........

 

Libertarians....................

 

Fyi.................

 

Yes, but it will most likely never happen. They own too many politicians, and hope to own many more after the next elections.

In a campaign supported by the Koch brothers, Republicans are working to prevent millions of Democrats from voting

 

You are probably right.. I just find it fascinating that they could flaunt the law and do business with Iran.

 

I find it amazing that people with more money than they could ever hope to spend in their lifetime, would not only flout the law, but also trample on people's rights, just to make more money. These are sociopathic scum.

 

Sociopathic scum indeed. I suppose they support politicians like Bachmann, because they hope to be able to sell even more stuff to Iran after the place is attacked, needs weapons to defend itself against the US, has been flattened and needs rebuilding.

Michele Bachmann: The First 2012er to Get Koch Cash
http://motherjones.com/mojo/2011/07/michele-bachmann-koch-brothers-2012

 

Yes. And they know that if they can 'persuade' the right talking heads to tell lies for them, that a certain percentage of the population will vote the way they want. All they need to do then is disenfranchise enough people who won't vote the way they want and they will own the government.

I am a bit surprised that there are not more defenders on this thread. Maybe even the hardliners find that these slimebags are too hard to defend. Better to ignore it and it will go away.

 

All of this happened in France?

Hell, the French were sending weapons to Iran the day before we invaded. But that is fine with the liberal horde.

 

I find it rather nauseating that the the future of America will probably turn out to be determined by little more than the proceedings of an ongoing mega-turf war between the Koch bros and George Soros and/or people just like them.

 

You invaded Iran? When?

I don't know about the 'liberal horde' in the US - they might be just as ignorant of politics and events in foreign countries as the 'rightwing-horde' is.

But where I come from people get just as pissed off with French companies as with American, British, German ones who do shady dealings ... it's a globalized economy and the villains are global too.
But people might still get slightly more angry with companies flying their own flag and buying their own politicians. Understandable: You know, your own companies take a dumb directly into your front-room so to speak, whereas foreign countries' companies just take one at your doorstep.

 

Cool that way Iran can put up a defense to kill invaders.

 

So a subsidiary was breaking the law, and when the parent company found out, the person responsible was fired.

So were the Koch's supposed to have handled this differently?

 

You missed this:

The ‘Koch Method’

Internal company documents show that the company made those sales through foreign subsidiaries, thwarting a U.S. trade ban. Koch Industries units have also 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.

From 1999 through 2003, Koch Industries was assessed more than $400 million in fines, penalties and judgments. In December 1999, a civil jury found that Koch Industries had taken oil it didn’t pay for from federal land by mismeasuring the amount of crude it was extracting.

Koch paid a $25 million settlement to the U.S.

Phil Dubose, a Koch employee who testified against the company said he and his colleagues were shown by their managers how to steal and cheat -- using techniques they called the Koch Method.

 

Won't be the first time America has flouted the law in dealing with Iran. Remember Ronnie Reagan and Iran-Contra? (I'm sure many right-wing Americans will employ the technique of selective blindness on this issue).

 

The Koch Brothers weren't trying to rescue hostages.

The were stealing oil from Federal land.

 

Iran-Contra? That fine, upstanding 'liberal' Ronnie Reagan might take issue with you.

 

So what? Reagan's treacherous actions were far, far more serious than a dodgy oil-deal.

 

Good thing corporations are now people.

Send in the police and arrest Kock Industries and seize all of its property and assets. Then give it the death penalty for treason.

 

No , we'll just point out how full of crap your comand of the facts is, per usual in your posts.

Iran-contra was the Reagan Dept.of Defense convincing two of our enemies to BOTH pay us, to arm them, to kill each other, and then using that money to fight the spread of communism in the Western Hemisphere.

In short, perhaps the most brilliant foreign policy ploy since WW2 that the US has put together.

Illegal?

More bullcrap. The Boland Amendment, which was the bogus "law" that the then pro-communist, Kerry-led Senate tried to prosecute Col. Oliver North, Adm. Poindexter, and other Reagan Adm. members under, was ITSELF FOUND TO BE ILLEGAL, as being "too vague" and an "illegal incursion into Executive Branch powers...".

North emerged a national hero, the Slime-o-crats were ROUTED in the following election.


Make up much bullcrap? Keep trying; maybe someday, by accident, you'll actually post something that is factually correct.

Please don't be offended if we don't hold our breath waiting...

 

I love how the forumleft keeps right on pretending to themselves that everyone else hasn't already read the OP link, and knows that Koch Ind. investigated, exposed,and dealt with this matter themselves.

 

Why did I even bother asking the question? I knew it would be ignored.

However just to further make the point:

"In May 2008, a unit of Koch Industries Inc., one of the world’s largest privately held companies, sent Ludmila Egorova-Farines, its newly hired compliance officer and ethics manager, to investigate the management of a subsidiary in Arles in southern France. In less than a week, she discovered that the company had paid bribes to win contracts.

“I uncovered the practices within a few days,” Egorova- Farines says. “They were not hidden at all.”

She immediately notified her supervisors in the U.S. A week later, Wichita, Kansas-based Koch Industries dispatched an investigative team to look into her findings, Bloomberg Markets magazine reports in its November issue.

By September of that year, the researchers had found evidence of improper payments to secure contracts in six countries dating back to 2002, authorized by the business director of the company’s Koch-Glitsch affiliate in France.

“Those activities constitute violations of criminal law,” Koch Industries wrote in a Dec. 8, 2008, letter giving details of its findings. The letter was made public in a civil court ruling in France in September 2010; the document has never before been reported by the media.

Egorova-Farines wasn’t rewarded for bringing the illicit payments to the company’s attention. Her superiors removed her from the inquiry in August 2008 and fired her in June 2009, calling her incompetent, even after Koch’s investigators substantiated her findings. She sued Koch-Glitsch in France for wrongful termination."

Now, let me try again. What should the company have done differently?

 

You can find the full article here:
http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Artic...Industries-Broke-Laws-Records-Show.aspx#page1
It's three pages long, so it's too long to copypaste it here, but I'm sure you'll manage to read it and find out what the company could and should have done differently.
Should you still have difficulties just employ the mental trick of imagining that this company had sponsored Obama rather than Bachmann. If you do that I'm sure it will take you less than a page to be foaming from your mouth with anger.