NAFT TRADING S.A. Lucia Kassai and . Erni was most recently. In an email, an official wrote that Matt Hancock, health secretary at the time, would send a letter to universities asking for loans of the various things we need. The money is in our account and as yet we have not paid anyone, said the spokesman. Responding to Reuters story, Reliance strongly denied making any payments via third parties to PDVSA. Overview of anti-corruption in the renewable energy sector The renewable energy sector is a rapidly growing market that is crucial to increasing access to energy and supporting climate change mitigation. Private landlords and housing associations may apply for a grant on behalf of tenants who meet the eligibility criteria. Fuel Oil The case dates back to March 2020, when EDL reported to the judiciary that it had received a shipment of poor-quality fuel, even though the results of tests conducted at the port of exit and upon the fuels arrival at the Beirut port showed the opposite. Aguilar also has served as a deputy in the legislative National Assembly. BB Naft shareholder Wael Bassatne told El Nuevo Herald that his company did not violate the U.S. embargo because it is not registered and does no business in the United States. The CEEC was made up of local residents who are . 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. Many of the Mossack Fonseca emails and documents show the relationship between BB Naft and the BB Energy group through the years. Khalid Mahmood (Labour) has committed up to 15 hours a month advising the Policy Exchange think tank on issues including extremism. However, Reuters was unable to independently verify if the agreement was implemented and remains in force. Santiago De Cuba. 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. The aftermath of the devastating earthquake in Turkey and Syria is no exception. Little is known inside the island about the Cuban governments companies abroad, but Havana economist Omar Everleny wrote in the early 2000s that there were more than 100 entities with the participation of Cuban capital, founded as mixed [state-private] companies or as branches of companies based on the island operating abroad in areas such as construction, agriculture, food, medicine, mining, finance and science., Everleny, recently fired from the University of Havanas Center for the Study of the Cuban Economy, noted the paradox that a country that lacks the capital for its own development has invested in other countries. The motive, he speculated, is the U.S. embargo that forced the establishment of a network of companies around the world to warehouse and market products from the sea, among them lobsters and shrimp., Today the export of products from the fishing industry is carried out through those companies, he said, adding that Cuban officials also created an international network of companies to warehouse and sell the famous Cuban cigars.. BB Energy Group has invested in Gasmeth Energy Global, a company focused on the responsibly extraction, processing, and distribution of methane gas from Rwandas Lake Kivu, one of the African Great Lakes. Instead of seeking to polish and rescue parliaments reputation, Labour and the unions should be campaigning for a complete clean out of corrupted MPs. BB Naft did business with Cuba between 1992 and 2001, trading oil for sugar for $300 million, with credit facilities at low interest rate, Coronado wrote. The PDVSA source said the company was proposing the new arrangements known as factoring to allow PDVSA clients to receive oil without making direct payments to the Venezuelan state oil company in the wake of Januarys sanctions. The case is now with the Mount Lebanon Criminal Court, presided over by Mohamad Mortada. Issues with the quality of the fuel imported to Lebanon were uncovered by Yahya Mawlud, the director of Middle East Power, which runs turbines at the Zouk and Jiyyeh power plants. Few traders had room to receive physical barrels at Cushing. Entity: B.B. The arrangement would also allow the cash-strapped Venezuelan state company to receive faster payment, sometimes avoiding the usual 30-to-90 day timeframe for completing oil transactions. 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. 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. Miqati Says Cyprus Still Waiting for Lebanon's Ratification of Maritime Border Agreement. Other leaked Mossack Fonseca documents show the interwoven complex of offshore companies created by the Cuban government to import and export goods and invest funds abroad with the assistance of the Panamanian law firm. The government was forced to go back on itself and announced there would be a vote on Patersons suspension. Mango madness in IndiaSouth Asia diaspora reporter Gaggan Sabherwal shares the story of the Indian couple whove employed security guards after discovering they had planted an extremely rare mango tree by mistake at $50 a mango they aren't taking any chances! Formed in the 1960s, the group's activities span six continents. Corruption in the Energy Sector Corruption has been defined by Robert Klitgaard3 as "the abuse of office for personal gain". Judge Aoun has charged 12 people in the case, including Electricite du Liban director-general Kamal Hayek for negligence of duty, and Hleiss and director of oil at the energy ministry Aurore Feghali for bribes and negligence of duty. All rights reserved. Patersons lobbying interests extended to sausage company Lynns Country Foods who paid him 12,000 for just 24 hours of work each year. Asked about Rosnefts offer and the fuel cargo payment, a spokesman for BB Energy said the company had not completed the transaction, under guidance from legal counsel. 310. 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. El Nuevo Herald identified at least 25 companies registered in the British Virgin Islands, Panama and the Bahamas and linked to Cuba. All of Britain's Big Six energy suppliers, EDF Energy , Innogy's Npower, E.ON, Scottish Power, SSE and Centrica's British Gas, have submitted bids in a tender run by regulator Ofgem to . The Panama Papers, documents leaked to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and shared with the McClatchy Washington Bureau, Miami Herald and El Nuevo Herald, among others, contain hundreds of thousands of pages from the files of Mossack Fonseca, a Panama law firm with offices in 33 other countries. BB Energy has trading hubs in the UAE, the U.K., the US, and Singapore. Swiss lawyer Albert-Louis Dupont-Willemin appears as a director of several of the Cuban companies, among them Miramar Investment Corporation Ltd. and Pescatlan S.A. Please check individual images for licensing details. Companies registered abroad are legally not Cuban, according to the source, and could be used for dollar-denominated transactions. Records of a meeting in Dubai in March of 2011 reflect a decision to significantly reduce the capital of BB Naft, held by BB Energy Holdings NV., from $8 million to $1.050 million. It is worth noting here that Daraj previously investigated suspicious money transactions through Lebanese banks, for Nassim Ould Kaddour, the son of Abdelmoumen Ould Kaddour, based on Panama Papers (First National Bank and Socit gnrale de banque au Liban). Somebody did and bedlam ensued. As working class people suffered mass deaths during the first phases of the Covid pandemic, Tory MPs and their mates filled their bank accounts. 3. The contents of the contract were never known to the Lebanese people, despite costing the treasury billions of dollars. 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 relationship between the BB Energy Group and Petroecuador appears to have lasted until recent days. This comes on top of his standard MP salary of 81,932. The Venezuelan companys shipping schedules showed that Reliance was loading a cargo from PDVSA as recently as April 20. Hayes recently opposed a plan to bring forward a ban on selling new petrol and diesel cars. The company, which has offices in Havana and other countries, was created to handle, among other things, its relationship with oil-exporting Latin American countries and with Cuba, Mossack Fonseca lawyer Rigoberto Coronado wrote in an email. Venezuelas oil ministry, its information ministry - which handles media for the government - and PDVSA did not respond to questions. Rosneft, which has heavily invested in Venezuela under President Vladimir Putin, did not respond to a request for a comment before Reuters published its story on Thursday. 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. The MP has also drawn comparisons between climate activism and radical Islam, writing: Radical Islam, Black Lives Matter and the Extinction Rebellion are cultural not economic movements which want to disown our collective past and so transform our very way of life and so dictate the future.. Such deals, however, may be authorized by the Treasury Departments Office of Foreign Assets Control or the Commerce Departments Bureau of Industry and Security. The similar logo and name are explained through an agreement between the two firms that gave ZR Energy DMCC the right to use the brand and credit facility of ZR Group Holding SAL. Our role was to advise the council on how to reduce carbon emissions and make space for nature across the borough. Campuses would have to give up testing resources and send them to Randox, they continued. Listed as a director of one of the companies is a brother of Gen. Luis Alberto Rodrguez Lpez-Calleja husband of Cuban ruler Raul Castros daughter and powerful head of the Cuban armed forces business conglomerate, GAESA. Since 2018, John Hayes, who served as an energy minister in David Camerons government, has worked for BB Energy as a strategic adviser. They include Petrobras, Vitol, and Glencore Limited. BB Energy ("BBE or the Group") was established by the Bassatne Family who started a commodities business in Lebanon in 1937, trading grain and asphalt. Pakistan ranks 140th in Transparency International's Corruption Index 2022 . This article is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence. BBE maintains . Last month the independent Parliamentary Standards Commissioner found Paterson had breached the tame paid advocacy rules. One Bloomberg report showed BB Energy. For its part, ZR Energy DMCC denied any involvement in illegal practices. and Promotora de Cigarros S.L., two companies registered in Spain and involved in the sale of Cuban cigars. After the report was published, Reliance did not respond to further questions from Reuters about why the PDVSA internal document proposed Reliance pay Rosneft a marketing fee related to the supply of crude under the Indian firms long-term supply contract with PDVSA. A former Tory Party chairman told The Sunday Times, Once you pay your 3 million, you get your peerage.. The Panama Papers show Dupont-Willemin as a director of a total of 49 offshore companies in the British Virgin Islands, five in Panama and two each in the Bahamas and Seychelles islands. In 1963 they entered the oil sector in Lebanon and were primarily involved in local marketing of oil products and importation of Bitumen. ZR Group Holding SAL and ZR Energy DMCC are two separate corporate entities. Starmer last week called on Johnson to answer, apologise and act over sleaze allegations. Last month he and. the Home Energy and Conservation Act (HECA) report in Appendix 1. As the pandemic highlighted, it is a mechanism for the enrichment of the tiny elite of business people who have an inside track to ministers and top civil servants. Rosneft would also make a profit by receiving an intermediation fee, the source and an internal PDVSA document said. BB Energy registered a company in Texas, BB Energy USA LLC., in 2014. Tell Grant Shapps to stop giving away Emissions Trading Scheme permits, Former energy minister John Hayes, who has likened climate protesters to Radical Islam, has received a 50,000 salary from BB Energy since 2018. 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. Subscribe to our newsletters and offers. It is noteworthy that Mr. Fawal is not authorized to sign the companys contracts, and he assured the Lebanese judiciary that he is merely a representative of Sonatrach in the negotiation processes, and not in concluding contracts. Ltd. and Singapore-registered PowerCo International Pte. Since sanctions were imposed, Reliance has made such purchases with the full knowledge and approval of the U.S. Department of State (USDOS), Reliance 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. Since the Tories takeover of parliament in 2010, nine of the partys former treasurerswho donated huge amountswere given a position as a Lord. The London branch of the Algerian Sonatrach published a statement through the Algerian News Agency, saying that whoever was presented by the media as an employee of Sonatrach is not, in fact, an employee in the company, but an independent marine agent who monitors shipments in Lebanon for the benefit of the companys branch in London. The Algerian company tried to imply that the issue is limited to the technical specifications of the fuel. This was set to be voted on in parliament. They have addresses in the Miramar and Old Havana neighborhoods of the Cuban capital. And most trade union leaders went down the same path. All individuals involved in this initiative - including co-founders, advisory board members, and experts - are serving in their personal capacity. Stormy days are ahead for Algeria's state-owned oil company Sonatrach, currently rocked by two alleged corruption cases. When he was appointed, Hayes said he would advise the company on strategic plans in the context of changes in the worldwide energy market. For a grant on behalf of tenants who meet the eligibility criteria partys. Opposed a plan to bring forward a ban on selling new petrol and diesel cars Naft the. Opposed a plan to bring forward a ban on selling new petrol diesel... In Texas, BB Energy has trading hubs in the 1960s, U.K.... 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