AN engineering group with operations at Elland is to plead guilty to breaking United Nations sanctions – after it admitted giving kickbacks to Saddam Hussein’s regime.
Glasgow-based Weir, which makes pumps and valves for the oil and gas industry, expects to receive a fine and pay a confiscation order worth £13.9m when the case is heard in the High Court in Edinburgh today.
The group, which includes Weir Valves & Controls UK Ltd at Huddersfield Road in Elland, has admitted two charges of breaching UN sanctions in connection with a number of Oil For Food contracts between 2000 and 2002.
Weir made £3.1m of payments to the dictatorship through an agent who arranged contracts in Iraq.
The payments were in breach of the Oil For Food programme, which was introduced by the UN to enable Iraq to sell its oil provided the cash was used for food, medicine and other humanitarian needs and was designed to prevent Iraq building its weapons capability.
An investigation started in 2004 when Weir Group discovered the payments on top of the commission it paid for its activities, which included the supply of water pumps and pipelines.
Lord Smith, chairman of Weir, said: “What happened was wrong. As I said in 2004, I am bitterly disappointed that this went on within the Weir Group. Since 2004, when we first disclosed the issue, we have radically overhauled procedures.”
