Halliburton liable for all violations on all fronts

“Halliburton (NYSE: HAL) is the world's second largest [6] oilfield services corporation with operations in more than 70 countries. It has hundreds of subsidiaries, affiliates, branches, brands and divisions worldwide and employs over 50,000 people.[5]

The company has its headquarters in the North Belt office in Houston, Texas, and in offices in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (opened March, 2007) where Chairman and CEO David J. Lesar works and resides, "to Focus [the] Company’s Eastern Hemisphere Growth."[7] The company will remain incorporated in the United States.[8][9][10]

Halliburton's major business segment is the Energy Services Group (ESG). ESG provides technical products and services for petroleum and natural gas exploration and production. Halliburton's former subsidiary, KBR, is a major construction company of refineries, oil fields, pipelines, and chemical plants. Halliburton announced on April 5, 2007 that it had finally broken ties with KBR, which had been its contracting, engineering and construction unit as a part of the company for 44 years.[11]”

“David J. Lesar, is Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer of Halliburton Energy Services. Trained as a Certified Public Accountant, Lesar spent 16 years at Arthur Andersen. He had spent most of his career at Andersen, where he worked on their Halliburton account. In 1995, Lesar was hired by Halliburton as a new vice president.

Three months later he had a new boss, Dick Cheney. Within a year of his arrival, Cheney had fired Tommy Knight—a 32-year Kellogg, Brown and Root veteran—and named Lesar the new CEO of KBR, in addition to his duties as CFO of Halliburton. In May 1997, Cheney elevated Lesar to President and COO. After Cheney's departure, in 2000, Lesar became CEO of Halliburton. He also serves on the board of directors at Lyondell Chemical and is also a member of the Upstream Committee of the American Petroleum Institute.

The movie Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers claims that Lesar has been paid over $42,000,000.00 by Halliburton since the beginning of Iraq war.

He is also on the board of directors of the American Iranian Council, an organization devoted to the normalization of American-Iranian relations.[2]

Lesar was born in Madison, Wisconsin and is a 1978 graduate of the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where he earned both a Bachelor of Science and a Master of Business Administration degree. He previously resided in Houston, Texas, however has recently moved to Dubai, UAE, to focus on Eastern Hemisphere operations.”

“Energy company Enron was broken up after revelations of Andersen's performance as an auditor. The Powers Committee (appointed by Enron's board to look into the firm's accounting in October 2001) came to the following assessment: "The evidence available to us suggests that Andersen did not fulfill its professional responsibilities in connection with its audits of Enron’s financial statements, or its obligation to bring to the attention of Enron’s Board (or the Audit and Compliance Committee) concerns about Enron’s internal contracts over the related-party transactions".[4]

On June 15, 2002, Andersen was convicted of obstruction of justice for shredding documents related to its audit of Enron, resulting in the Enron scandal. Nancy Temple (Andersen Legal Dept.) and David Duncan (Lead Partner for the Enron account) were cited as the responsible managers in this scandal as they had given the order to shred relevant documents. Since the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission does not allow convicted felons to audit public companies, the firm agreed to surrender its CPA licenses and its right to practice before the SEC on August 31, 2002 - effectively putting the firm out of business. It had already started winding down its American operations after the indictment, and many of its accountants joined other firms. The firm sold most of its American operations to KPMG, Deloitte & Touche, Ernst & Young and Grant Thornton LLP. The damage to Andersen's reputation also destroyed the viability of the firm's international practices. Most of them were taken over by the local firms of the other major international accounting firms.”

“Tests warned of cement troubles before BP blowout

 

By DINA CAPPIELLO

The Associated Press
Thursday, October 28, 2010; 4:08 PM

WASHINGTON -- Tests performed before the deadly blowout of BP's oil well in the Gulf of Mexico should have raised doubts about the cement used to seal the well, but the company and its cementing contractor used it anyway, investigators with the president's oil spill commission said Thursday.

It's the first finding from the commission looking into the causes of the April 20 explosion that killed 11 workers and led to the largest offshore oil spill in U.S. history. And it appears to conflict with statements made by Halliburton Co., which has said its tests showed the cement mix was stable. The company instead has said BP's well design and operations are responsible for the disaster.

The cement mix's failure to prevent oil and gas from entering the well has been identified by BP and others as one of the causes of the accident.

BP and Halliburton decided to use a foam slurry created by injecting nitrogen into cement to secure the bottom of the well, a decision outside experts have criticized.”