Regardless of whether payments flowed directly to PDVSA or remained in Russia to pay down debt, the proposed approach appears to present no violation of sanctions by any of the entities because no U.S. citizens, currency, companies or financial institutions seem to be involved, according to four sanctions experts consulted by Reuters. 310. MPs are elected to provide a voice for their constituents in Westminster, but when they also have lucrative side-jobs for private companies it raises questions over whose interests they are really serving, said Alex Runswick, senior advocacy manager at Transparency International UK. Starmer even chose last week to announce that Labour was no longer in favour of abolishing the House of Lords. The government was forced to go back on itself and announced there would be a vote on Patersons suspension. A Reuters news agency report shows that the mother company, BB Energy, was still sending petroleum to Syria in 2011. If youre rich and want a place of power in politics, donate 3 million to the Conservative Party and youre likely to gain a peerage. A State Department spokeswoman said: We encourage companies, banks, and other institutions to refrain from providing services that support (Maduros) repressive practices.. Formed in the 1960s, the group's activities span six continents. A lawyer for Panamericana, Katiuska Peado Moreno, and a former commercial attach at the Cuban embassy in London, Alejandro Gutirrez Madrigal, are listed as the beneficiaries of shares in Miramar Investment Corporation Ltd. worth $50,000. Fresh scrutiny has been applied after it was revealed former Attorney General Sir Geoffrey Cox was being paid hundreds of thousands of pounds advising the British Virgin Islands' government in a corruption investigation. PDVSAs contemplated payment agreement with Rosneft is part of a series of methods used by Maduros government to gain access to cash, including selling Central Bank gold reserves. A scandal over the import of sub-standard quality fuel into Lebanon has seen some two-dozen people arrested, two fuel tankers seized and the offices of two major fuel traders raided and sealed off amid ongoing investigations. ZR Group and Mr. Rahmeh were unlawfully indicted on a number of charges, of which all but one have been dropped. They include Petrobras, Vitol, and Glencore Limited. Which groups shape the stories we see in the press; which voices are silenced, and why? Plus, it is still not taking any of the precautions necessary today. What's more, one of the Algerian state-owned energy firm's subsidiaries has found itself in the crosshairs of a Lebanese court. As working class people suffered mass deaths during the first phases of the Covid pandemic, Tory MPs and their mates filled their bank accounts. In one transaction, an executive from Rosnefts Geneva trading unit said PDVSA had given its approval for Rosneft to collect payment from trading firm BB Energy for the purchase of 525,000 barrels of fuel oil loaded on Jan. 3, according to an offer letter. Yes! Longtime Labiofam director Jos Antonio Fraga Castro, a nephew of Fidel and Ral Castro, retired in 2014 amid the so-called revolutionary perfumes scandal, sparked when the company sought to sell perfumes inspired by Cuban revolutionary hero Ernesto Che Guevara and former Venezuelan President Hugo Chvez. At parliament we will try to make sure that high level responsibility is also explored - including all the ministers who stayed silent over the years., Fuel import scandal shows why transparency matters. His register of interests says he currently earns 50,000 in the role, for about 11 days work a year. And the case of Sabradell S.A., headed by Panamericana director Jos L. Fernndez de Cosso Domnguez for a time and dissolved in 2008. I think we have more confidence in what didnt happen than what did.. El Nuevo Herald identified at least 25 companies registered in the British Virgin Islands, Panama and the Bahamas and linked to Cuba. INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND 3.1. Behind the scandalous lies and appalling plunder by the political elite and their business backers lies their drive to profit from pandemic suffering. All individuals involved in this initiative - including co-founders, advisory board members, and experts - are serving in their personal capacity. We fully anticipate that the final charge will also be dismissed, he said. Reliance has said that in September 2012 it signed a 15-year deal to purchase up to 400,000 barrels a day of heavy crude from PDVSA. Riad Bassatne and his son Wael remained owners of the remaining shares. This is ostensibly because it was hard for the judiciary to find evidence linking ZR Energy DDMC and ZR Group Holding SAL, despite the testimonies collected by Mansour. The women pushing boundaries in Pakistans rural milk marketIn rural Pakistan women milk cows, but male relatives take the milk to male-run collection centres. The procedures may take a long time, particularly because the number of defendants is high. The latter said in a televised address that he discouraged Hleiss, one of his childhood friends, from going to the court. The branch he was managing, which was a subject for the report of the General Inspectorate of Finance, was dissolved. Lebanese judicial sources told Daraj that the investigation will not be limited to the technical specifications of fuel, but will also include the commissions Sonatrach is making. We are committed to acting as a model corporate citizen at all times and benefitting the local communities in which we operate. BB Energy (the Group) is pleased to announce the launch of its Improved Cookstove (ICS) Project in Rwanda. The trial is a step in the right direction, he said. BB Naft was listed in the Cuban registry of foreign companies operating on the island as of April of this year, with Riad Bassatne as director. From the beginning of the pandemic, Labour leader Keir Starmer spent nearly all his time agreeing with Boris Johnson in a show of national unity. The testimonies suggest that this system has been in place for years, resulting in Lebanon purchasing tainted fuel under a contract signed in 2005 with a subsidiary of Algerias Sonatrach Petroleum Corporation. Starmer last week called on Johnson to answer, apologise and act over sleaze allegations. The Energy Ministry responded to criticism by explaining that resorting to large oil refineries made it possible to limit the commissions charged by intermediaries, and therefore limited the risk. It targets Tarek Fawal, who is in charge of clearing Sonatrach BVIs transactions related to receiving and unloading fuel shipments in Lebanon, and is accused of bribery, forgery and using counterfeit documents, as well as Zaouk. Public debt could rise to 289% of GDP by the end of the century if climate change is left unchecked, it said. This is why parliament cannot be relied on for fundamental climate action. BB Energy is not known to be involved in fracking but says that it sells oil around the world - and is one of the largest traders in the Mediterranean. All rights reserved. Still, the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), which enforces sanctions, has given no indications it would take that route. This case points to the rampant corruption in the sector. Parliament is an unrepresentative, unaccountable front that covers for the real relations of power. Its ownership was in the form of anonymous bearer shares the owners are whoever has those shares. BBC Arabic's Moe Chreif tells us about the biggest corruption investigation in the history of Lebanons energy sector, which resulted in allegations involving multi-million dollar agreements, bribery, and shipments of substandard oil. Thats why the Tories manage to survive scandal after scandal. He was one of the witnesses in the pretrial investigation. LONDON, July 28 (Reuters) - Oil trading firm BB Energy has hired Jacques Erni as its new chief financial officer (CFO) starting Aug. 2 based in Dubai, the company said. We encourage anyone to comment, please consult, 43 Lords have financial interests in fossil fuel industry, How the UK helps the worlds kleptocrats and crooks deliberately, In the fight for racial justice, optimism is not enough, Staff and students in universities across the UK deserve better, The disturbing resurgence of antisemitic conspiracy theories, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence. In an effort to save him even this punishment, Johnson instructed Tory MP Andrea Leadsom to put forward an amendment and set up a committee to prevent his suspension. These high paid speeches have addressed bank JP Morgan Chase and World 50 Incan exclusive club for senior executives. A letter sent in 1998 by a Mossack Fonseca employee to the international trade office at state-run Petroecuador referred to documents sent by BB Naft required to register the company. A 2005 fax also points to an initial contact with the Venezuelan governments Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA). He boldly claimed a delay would allow fossil fuels to become even cleaner. The Lebanese National News Agency announced that the attorney-general of Mount Lebanon, Ghada Aoun, issued arrest warrants against 17 people working in the fuel sector because of import irregularities. Hayes recently opposed a plan to bring forward a ban on selling new petrol and diesel cars. Surprisingly, the contract, long presented as a state-to-state agreement, was in fact signed with Sonatrachs offshore subsidiary, which is registered in the British Virgin Islands. The aftermath of the devastating earthquake in Turkey and Syria is no exception. Randox later received a 347 million contract. They usually resort to those intermediaries when entering new markets that are unfamiliar to them, in order to benefit from their status inside this market, which they have done in several Asian countries before building direct relationships with the clients. This raised many questions about the timing, and the reasons for neglecting it all these past years. As Johnson announced Covid safety restrictions in March 2020, the government handed Randox a 133 million contract to manufacture Covid tests. They include BB Energy Trading Ltd., BB Energy Management S.A., BB Energy Holdings NV., BB Energy B.V., BB Energy (Asia) Pte. Ltd., BB Energy (Gulf) DMCC and BB Holding S.A.L. The Bassatne family incorporated BB Naft Trading S.A. in Panama, with Jrgen Mossack as a director. Fuel Oil Corruption and sleaze hard-wired into Johnson and Tories, The Sun rises on Starmers appeal to media and bosses, Covid report finds deadly failings but lets Tories off the hook, 43,000 people given the wrong Covid test results, Rich get the government to do what it is paid for, New secret club of millionaire Conservative donors revealed, Scottish teachers strikes successand English regional strikes hit hard, Strikes hit Sri Lanka against new austerity drive, Teachers across the north of England walk out over pay, Secret cop unit should have disbanded, inquiry finds. The Lincolnshire MP recently criticised the governments plan to bring forward a ban on selling new petrol and diesel cars, saying that a delay would allow fossil fuels to become even cleaner. The Swiss lawyer did not respond to El Nuevo Herald requests for comments on this story. Read about our approach to external linking. Ukraine's track record of massive corruption in energy is a sadly familiar story. Last month the independent Parliamentary Standards Commissioner found Paterson had breached the tame paid advocacy rules. BB Energy, which has a strong presence in Arab and African markets (see here ), has been embroiled in a legal spat in recent months with Saudi-Ethiopian businessman Mohammed Hussein Al Amoudi. In view of the foregoing debate, were forced to return to the commercial relationship between Sonatrach and the Lebanese Ministry of Energy, and the pressure exercised by former Sonatrach CEO, Abdelmoumen Ould Kaddour, to adopt ZR Energy trading company as a second intermediary besides Baha Bassatne, as a supplier in the Algerian companys name; the thing that occurred a year and a half before opening the file. The publication was sponsored by Global Warming Policy Forum, a think tank founded by climate change denier Nigel Lawson. BBE has consolidated experience in trading, operations, chartering, logistics, storage, refining, and financing, trading in excess of 40 million metric tonnes (MT) of crude oil, petroleum product, and gas in 2021. A former Tory Party chairman told The Sunday Times, Once you pay your 3 million, you get your peerage.. The new certificates, for 800 shares, were to be issued in the names of 10 members of the Bassatne family, including 160 shares for Riad Bassatne. October 19, 2018, 15:03 IST DUBAI: Trading company BB Energy has raised a $245 million revolving credit facility to refinance existing credit and for general corporate purposes, it said on Thursday. Steve Goodrich, research manager at Transparency International, said the number of MPs who accepted visits to Azerbaijan - a petrostate with a big corruption and human rights problem - was. You can unsubscribe at any time*. State-run Bangladesh Petroleum Corp., or BPC, has awarded the building contract to a consortium of Japan's Marubeni Corp., Vitol Asia Pte. Subscribe to our newsletters and offers. Lebanese judicial sources told Daraj that the investigation will not be limited to the technical specifications of fuel, but will also include the commissions Sonatrach is making. By. All the other commercial activities were not affected by any sanctions because these regulations do not exist as such, he wrote in an email, adding that Mexico, Canada and the European Union have laws prohibiting their citizens and companies from obeying U.S. sanctions on Cuba. The company opened an office in Cuba, he explained, because he has been a resident of Havana like his wife and three children, all of them born in Cuba and Cuban citizens. Speaking on condition of anonymity, a lawyer with knowledge of the proceedings said that there is no [indictment] at this point. It is up to the criminal court to decide on the merits [of the case], and to determine whether ZR Group Holding SAL and Rahmeh are involved in the case. Wars, natural disasters and economic downturns have historically exposed children to the danger of trafficking and illegal adoption. Boris Johnson initially backed Paterson. ZR Energy DMCC was not aware of any deficiency and relied on the representations of independent and internationally recognised third-party testers who certified that it was on specification when ZR Energy DMCC handled the cargo, a representative of ZR Energy DMCC said. Reports obtained by LOGI show that tests of one batch of fuel showed it could contain chemical waste. The quality of the fuel was so bad that it caused material damage to turbines at both the Jiyeh and Zouk power plants. In 2015, BB Energy won Ecuadoran contracts for more than three million barrels of naphtha, a petroleum distillate. Starting in the early 1990s, Cubas Ministry of Foreign Trade, through the Compaa Panamericana S.A, used Mossack Fonseca to create a string of disguised companies in Panama, the Bahamas and the British Virgin Islands that bought and sold medicines, cigars and food. The difference: The name of the BVI firm has no Spanish accents, the Cuban companys name does. BB Energy has trading hubs in the UAE, the U.K., the US, and Singapore. Labour supports essentially the same system as now. It has since been renewed four times. The judiciarys opening of this file occured to the beat of a political debate that the judiciary does not seem to be far from, especially as opening such a file occurred according to a report presented by the leader in the the Aounist party, lawyer Wadih Akl, and investigations were conducted by Judge Ghada Aoun. This was set to be voted on in parliament. MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - (This April 18 story corrects to make clear Reuters could not determine payments were made under the proposed arrangement, removes reference to Evrofinance Mosnarbank and clarifies that experts see no violation of sanctions). This entire case rests on false assumptions backed up by entirely fabricated charges. The leaked documents confirm the existence of these types of foreign companies, with at least partial Cuban government capital. Tory whips threatened MPs with the loss of local funding unless they fell into line. They escaped after senior adviser Dominic Cummings showed there was one law for the rich and another for the rest. Panamericanas former director, Jos L. Fernndez de Cosso Domnguez, is listed in the leaked documents as a director of Miramar Investment Corporation Ltd, Euro Foods Ltd, Racuza S.A, Caribbean Sugar Trader, Mercaria Trading S.A. and Sabradell S.A. Fernndez more recently served as Cubas ambassador to Japan and economic attach at the embassy in Paris. The family controls BB Energy, a conglomerate founded in Lebanon in 1937 that buys and sells 16 million metric tons of crude and derivatives each year. 1) BB Energy Holdings N.V., Curaao Our holding company involved in global Oil & Gas trading activities and owns the below subsidiaries: BB Energy Trading Ltd., London Europe and the Mediterranean region BB Energy (Gulf) DMCC, Dubai Middle East, Arabian Gulf, Red Sea, East and South Africa, Pakistan, Western side of India and the CIS Published by Larkham Printers & Publishers Ltd, Correspondence address: PO Box 74955, London E16 9EJ | company registered in England & Wales, number: 1335756, registered address: 71-75 Shelton Street London WC2H 9JQ. Last month, he also joined calls from Tory MPs to allow shale fracking to resume in the UK. The report claims peerages appeared to be a reward to thank wealthy donors for funding the Tory party. ZR Energy DMCC wrote on its website, ZR Energy DMCC and Mr. Zaouk are incidental victims of this sinister power struggle.. Copyright 2023 BB Energy. After Rafik Damak was appointed by Ould Kaddour as the manager of the London branch in October 2017, the latter was able to remove many of the companys traditional clients out of the way. He receives a salary of 25,000 a year. The Cuban military is estimated to control at least 60 percent of the islands economy. The CEEC was set up after H&F Council declared a climate and ecological emergency in July 2019. Teddy Rahmeh and his company, ZR Group SAL Holding, are not involved in importing fuel oil to Lebanon, the representative of ZR Group Holding SAL said, denouncing the charges as a political conspiracy. In recent years, the company has become increasingly active in LPG and LNG. BB Energy is one of the world's leading independent energy trading companies. Reliance said in its statement its purchases of Venezuelan oil from Rosneft do not lead to any payments to PDVSA. The council set a target of reaching net zero carbon emissions for the borough by 2030. But he was forced to U-turn to try and end the wave of sleaze allegations. BB Energy, a leading global independent energy trading company, is pleased to announce that it has successfully refinanced and expanded a$580 millionsenior secured borrowing base credit facility (the Facility). Like the extractives sector, the renewables industry requires substantial capital investments, which can come with substantial risks of . John Hayes works for BB Energy as a strategic adviser, Politicians accused of being worryingly cosy with oil and gas firms as its revealed almost one in ten Tory peers has financial stake in the sector. 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