STOCKHOLM - Truck and construction equipment maker Volvo Group
admitted on Friday that its former agent in Iraq had told
investigators he paid money to Saddam Hussein's regime in the UN
oil-for-food scandal.
"If he says so then we have to assume that that is what happened,"
Volvo spokesman Maarten Wikforss told AFP, adding that the company
was still investigating what exactly took place.
Volvo was one of 2,200 companies identified in a United Nations
report on kickbacks paid to the Iraqi government under the
oil-for-food program that ran from 1996 to 2003.
He stressed however that Volvo, which also makes buses and aircraft
and boat engines, did not consider the payments as bribes.
"It was considered a tax or a charge that had to be paid in order
to do business in Iraq. It was called the '10 percent system'. It
was not seen as bribes," Wikforss said.
He insisted that Volvo does not condone bribery.
"We do not use bribes when it comes to business deals. That is not
okay, that is not acceptable," he said.
"Alarm bells should have gone off but they didn't, since no one
considered it to be bribery. But we are looking into that now," he
said.
A number of other Swedish companies or their subsidiaries,
including industrial group Atlas Copco Airpower and pharmaceuticals
company Astra Zeneca, were also named in the UN report.
Swedish chief prosecutor Christer van der Kwast said he would
examine whether a preliminary inquiry could be opened against the
Swedish companies.
"We are going to look at the material and see if it is possible to
begin a criminal investigation," he told Swedish Radio.
The Swedish Anti-Corruption Institute said however that it may be
difficult to press charges since many of the Swedish companies used
local middlemen or agents.
"It seems to be the case that the Swedish companies used middlemen,
free agents and retailers. One could argue that this is something
that is not illegal for the Swedish companies or their
subsidiaries," the institute's deputy chairman Jan Persson told
TT.
- AFP /ls