I didn’t think it was possible, but Halliburton is the subject of yet another federal criminal probe.
The Justice Department is looking into whether former Halliburton Co. employees conspired with other companies to rig bids for large overseas construction projects, according to the company.
The antitrust probe has grown out of a continuing investigation into whether a consortium of companies that included Halliburton bribed officials in Nigeria to win a lucrative contract to build a liquefied natural-gas plant there. Halliburton disclosed the bid-rigging investigation in its annual 10-k filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Halliburton says the federal investigation has “uncovered” information suggesting that several employees may have been involved in coordinated bidding for large construction projects as early as the mid-1980s. Halliburton also said it and federal investigators had broadened their probes to determine if Halliburton and other companies had broken antitrust laws.
Let’s see, Dick “Go F— Yourself” Cheney’s former company is already facing a federal grand jury investigation into whether the company illegally did business with Iran, and a Justice Department investigation into whether Halliburton overcharged the military for services in Iraq, not to mention scandals that may yet be investigated. What’s another federal probe among friends?
But don’t worry too much about the poor company. The U.S. Army is still more than willing to depart from normal policy and clear the way for lucrative payments to Halliburton, despite audit reports last summer that said the giant logistical contractor had not properly accounted for a wide variety of work in Iraq and Kuwait.