Koch Brothers Flout Law Getting Richer With Secret Iran Sale

Koch Brothers Flout Law Getting Richer With Secret Iran Sales
Former Employee: 'Everything Koch Stood For Was A Lie'

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.


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.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-10-0 ... sales.html

It's a long article but well worth the read...


All in a day's work for the Koch Brothers. Aiding our enemies...Stealing from the government...Lying to regulators.... And people wonder why there's a rebellion in Wall Street... And the teabaggers will scream about anything Obama does that even remotely smacks of not treating Iran as the enemy that it is...but will twist themselves into a pretzel defending these slimebags who are selling banned materials to Iran...

God, I love the smell of teabagger hypocrisy in the morning... :Whistle

Gee...Koch Brothers fined $400 million + $25 million...and selling supplies to Iran... And it's [crickets chirping] from the Right...

Imagine my surprise....


(But "Obama fried chicken" is suddenly important...) Yes, I can see where the teabagger's priorities lie...

No...no...no crickets chirping....what you're hearing is a huge YAWN.

Like I said... Imagine MY surprise....

They need to be shut down and arrested. Throw thier sorry as*(* in jail and let them rot.

I've long ceased being amazed at what the Right will overlook in the way of crime, ethics, theft, destruction, greed...

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.

If I'm understanding this correctly, KOCH dispatched an investigative team to look into the findings. THEIR researchers found the evidence of improprieties.

No, "Koch" (as in: one of the brothers) did not... "a unit of Koch" sent the team... As in any large organization there are a few people who have a sense of honor and morals, even if the owners don't. "Former Employee: 'Everything Koch Stood For Was A Lie'" Notice it says "FORMER employee"...

"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."

Nice try at deflection though... But thanks for rising to the bait...

Ladyjazzer sounds like a Communist trying to expose any wrongdoing by a capitalist. Long live the revolution!

She always has. Has crickets chirping in her head apparently.