Australia-The Wheat Board scandal.

AUSTRALIA-CORRUPTION IN HIGH PLACES..

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission today lost its bid to delay its court case against former AWB chief executive Andrew Lindberg over his role in paying $300 million of kickbacks to Saddam Hussein’s regime..

At the same time Dick Cheyney’s company Halliburton were paying bribes to the government on Nigeria, to which they pleaded guilty and paid out half a billion dollars in fines. There in no way that the Howard government were unaware of this practice going on.

The highly complex case, which is expected to begin in July, is one of a series of six civil proceedings the corporate regulator initiated against AWB executives and directors in the Victorian Supreme Court in late 2007. All of the five other cases against Mr Lindberg’s former colleagues, including former AWB chairman Trevor Flugge, were postponed indefinitely last year after Justice Ross Robson deemed it was "on the cards" that the five would face criminal charges over the kickbacks scandal. But because Mr Lindberg was not likely to face criminal charges, the judge in November ruled his civil case could proceed. Last week, ASIC told the court that after analysing the potential evidence against Mr Lindberg and weighing up what was to be presented in the other five AWB civil cases, the regulator believed it would be most efficient to have the 52 allegations common to all the cases heard at the same time. Mr Lindberg, however, wanted the case to go ahead. His lawyers argued it was unfair that he should have serious allegations about his professional reputation and competence left unresolved for years. This morning Justice Robson agreed with Mr Lindberg. He said it would be unfair to delay justice any longer. ASIC alleges Mr Lindberg breached his fiduciary duties because he knew or should have known about the kickbacks. It argues that the wheat exporter’s payment of secret commissions to the Iraqi regime, in breach of UN economic sanctions against Iraq, damaged the company’s reputation. A crucial allegation against Mr Lindberg is that he was warned about the illicit nature of the payments in a February 2001 report and subsequent briefing to AWB senior officers by corporate consultants from the now-defunct firm, Arthur Andersen. Justice Robson noted there is a huge volume of evidence to be viewed by both sides before the trial begins in July, including more than 200,000 documents totalling more than 800,000 pages.ASIC plans to call at least 30 witnesses, including eight from overseas. Mr Lindberg denies many of the allegations against him, and part of his defence is that matters relating to Australia’s wheat export obligations to Iraq or Australia’s obligations under UN sanctions cannot be tried by the Victorian Supreme Court. No criminal charges have yet been laid by any authority against any of the AWB executives or directors. A multi-agency taskforce, led by the Australian Federal Police, continues to investigate the AWB kickbacks scandal more than two years after Commissioner Terence Cole, QC, handed down his inquiry findings.