Basil al-Jarah, Unaoil’s former Iraqi-born Iraq country manager, admitted to paying 17 million dollars in bribes to secure contracts to construct oil pipelines, an oil platform and offshore mooring buoys in the Gulf, as the nation tried to shore up a ruined economy after the fall of the last president Saddam Hussein in 2003. Former Unaoil managers Stephen Whiteley has been sentenced to three years in prison and Ziad Akle was sentenced to five years in jail after a trial that took place in London. The head of the SFO, Lisa Osofsky, said “This was a classic case of corruption, where powerful men took advantage of the desperation and vulnerability of others to line their own pockets.”
My take on this article is that Iraq just keeps getting worse and worse. The article’s subtext is “Basil al-Jarah admitted to paying $17m in bribes to clinch $1.7bn worth of oil projects in post-occupation Iraq.” I can’t even imagine that kind of money. It makes me wonder how deep oil companies can be imbedded with corrupt money and ideologies. When I see that 1.7 billion number, all I can think about is these people that are rolling up their sleeves to get paid minimum wage and their working conditions, and they are betrayed by their corporation, being cheated out of 1.7 billion dollars.
Comparing what we learned in class, Unaoil isn’t really a multinational corporation, or an MNC. We talked about how MNCs are companies that span multiple countries and do business globally without corresponding to any state’s particular interest. We also discussed how one of the key components of globalization with capability of influencing economic conditions where they operate, which Unaoil definitely falls under. Unaoil does span multiple countries, but they do correspond with their states interest, Iraq. That’s because Iraq doesn’t have a more free market like we do, and they have more power over the companies in their jurisdiction, especially the ones with 1.7 billion in oil.