Hey,

There's precious little information to be had in the UK press. Fair enough, I suppose, what with the investigation being ongoing.

As far as I can make out we have Iraq, under UN sanctions, being able able to trade oil for humanitarian goods. That's straight forward enough. However, through a process that is unclear to me, contracts had to be tendered for, in the usual way. At this point, Saddam's regime demanded cash (otherwise known as a bribe, or, colloquially, a "bung") for the award of said contracts, which it is alleged was duly paid.

I'd just like to add that I was reading up on the whole bribery and corruption thing - in relation to some stuff that was going down in Italy involving the Brentford Massive (GSK). A report I was reading also referenced some stuff that was going on in Germany, so I did a search for that, and came across another report from some official source, or other (it's in the back posts on my blog, if you're interested, in November/December, I think).

Anyway, apparently, one third of all bribery cases in Germany involve the health sector. Why does this not surprise me?

Matt

Sorry, it was October:

http://itsquiteanexperience.blogspot.com/2007/10/german-prosecutors-probe-again-into.html

There's one post before and one after the "German story," which are related...

Matt