2023-10-12 15:00:49
The criminal conviction of Total and Vitol for active bribery of foreign public officials in violation of the UN “oil for food” program is in accordance with the law, ruled Thursday, October 12, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).
The two oil groups, the French Total and the Swiss Vitol, were convicted in February 2016 on appeal in Paris. They had filed an appeal, rejected by a judgment of March 14, 2018. The two companies had brought the case before the ECHR, contesting the accessibility and predictability of French law.
But, in a judgment made public on Thursday, the ECHR concluded that the law applicable on the date of the facts was accessible and sufficiently predictable to allow the two companies to know that by paying hidden commissions in the context of disputed trading operations of Iraqi oil, in violation of the “oil for food” program, their criminal liability was likely to be incurred.
Read also: “Oil for food”, a global scandal
A sale of oil under UN control
The Court based in Strasbourg and responsible for ensuring respect for the fundamental rights of 800 million citizens in Europe specifies that there has therefore been no violation of Article 7 of the Convention on Human Rights (” No punishment without law).
In force from 1996 to 2003, the “oil for food” program aimed to mitigate the effects on the Iraqi population of a strict UN embargo decreed after Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990.
It allowed Saddam Hussein’s regime to sell oil, in limited quantities and under UN control, in exchange for humanitarian and consumer goods. But Baghdad had circumvented this program through parallel sales and overinvoicing, by distributing millions of barrels to “friendly” personalities or by collecting rebates on oil sales.
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