Nigeria drops Cheney charges
The case involved his ex-firm Halliburton
LAGOS, Nigeria - Nigeria's antigraft commission has dropped charges against former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney and his former company Halliburton, a spokesman for the commission said.
Femi Babafemi, spokesman for the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, said the charges against Cheney and other executives of Halliburton and its former subsidiary KBR, an engineering and construction-services firm, were dropped Friday after a plea-bargain deal was reached.
Authorities said the charges stemmed from a case involving as much as $180 million allegedly paid in bribes to Nigerian officials from 1995 to 2004 to win a $6 billion contract for a liquefied natural gas plant.
Halliburton, where Cheney was chief executive officer until 2000, offered to pay $120 million in fines and repatriate an additional $130 million to Nigeria, Babafemi said, according to Bloomberg News.
A person who answered a call from Bloomberg to Halliburton's Houston office said no one was available to comment.
Cheney was named in the charges because he led Halliburton during a period when the bribes were allegedly paid.
KBR agreed in February 2009 to pay a $402 million fine in the United States after admitting it bribed Nigerian officials, while Halliburton paid $177 million to settle allegations by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission without acknowledging wrongdoing.