Iran Oil Minister Summoned to Parliament over Total Corruption Case

TEHRAN (defapress) – Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh has been summoned to the parliament to explain about several issues, including a recent verdict to fine French oil and gas group Total (TOTF.PA) for bribing foreign officials in a case related to Iranian contracts in 1997, an MP said.

News ID: 74611

Date: 28 December 2018 - 15:12

Speaking to the Tasnim News Agency, Hedayatollah Khademi, who is a member of the parliament’s energy commission, said his question from Zanganeh about domestic and foreign policies of the Oil Ministry will be examined in an open session of the parliament soon.

Referring to a recent verdict by a French court against the Total for paying bribes to some Iranian officials, the lawmaker said, “One of the questions will certainly be about this issue.”

“It is necessary to determine which officials were given the bribes  in which contract and how much and how they were dealt with,” Khademi said.

Last Friday, a Paris court fined Total 500,000 euros ($570,000) for bribing foreign public officials in a case related to Iranian contracts in 1997.

The Total was charged with paying $30 million under the cover of a consultancy contract to facilitate a deal for the South Pars gas field more than two decades ago, which the Paris prosecutor said covered “corruption payments”.

Court documents said that from around 1995 to 2004, at the request of an Iranian official cited as Medhi Hashemi Rafsanjani, the son of Iran’s former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, Total and intermediaries made illicit payments to middlemen designated by Mehdi to help the company, according to Reuters.

Message end/