PARIS (Sputnik) – According to the French BFMTV news channel, Total has been ordered to pay a fine of 750,000 euros ($826,000 at current exchange rates) for corrupting Iraqi civil servants. The court's ruling overturns an earlier acquittal in the case.
The Oil-for-Food Programme was adopted by the UN Security Council in 1995 and was implemented in 1996-2003. It allowed Baghdad to sell a certain amount of oil in exchange for food supplies to relieve the humanitarian situation in the country caused by the international sanctions imposed on it after the Gulf War.
In 2005, the United Nations issued a report, accusing 2,392 companies of violations related to its Oil-for-Food Programme that allowed the involved parties to receive financial benefits from oil supplies, as well as from humanitarian kickbacks. The total amount of illicit income derived through abuses of the program have been estimated at $1.8 billion.
