US confirms KBR Nigeria bribes

US authorities say they have evidence that an agent used by Halliburton’s former subsidiary KBR did issue bribes to Nigerian officials in connection with a Shell project in that country, according to a filing made by Halliburton to the US Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) at the end of last month.

The SEC launched a formal investigation into the matter, which dates back to the 1980s, last year after a March 2007 Halliburton government filing disclosed it.

The more recent filing stated that Halliburton and KBR suspended their agent in Nigeria and another agent who had worked for KBR on “several current projects and on numerous older projects going back to the early 1980s”.

KBR has since spun off from Halliburton, but the investigations cover a period when KBR was still a Halliburton subsidiary, and Dick Cheney – now US Vice President – was at the helm.

The US investigation relating to the Shell project – the EA field – is part of a larger probe into the “TSKJ” consortium, consisting of KBR and its partners.

The investigation alleges the partners agreed to pay more than $170 million in bribes to win billions of dollars of construction work on a giant Nigerian gas liquefaction plant also operated by Shell, according to the Financial Times.

The latest Halliburton filing says investigators have confirmed they have evidence that TSKJ agents also bribed Nigerian officials.