More on the Halliburton/Iran business partnership

From Newsweek in 2005:

Halliburton’s new deal [with Iran], in which it will participate in a $308 million project to develop Iran’s huge South Pars natural gas fields, was not at first publicly announced by the company. But after the South Pars project, and its role, was reported in the Iranian press in mid-January, Halliburton publicly confirmed that its Dubai-based subsidiary, Halliburton Products & Services Limited, had been awarded a subcontract on the project that, a Halliburton official told NEWSWEEK today, will net the parent firm between $30 million and $35 million over the next several years.

The new Halliburton project, congressional investigators say, raises substantial questions about the Jan. 28, 2005 public announcement by Halliburton CEO (and Cheney successor) David Lesar that the firm plans to cease doing business in Iran. Lesar made no reference to the South Pars project in his conference call with investment analysts that day, when he blamed “the political nature of the attacks on Halliburton” for the media attention given the company’s Iranian business.

May 1, 2007

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- A Halliburton Co. executive, facing criticism from Democratic lawmakers during a Senate hearing on Monday about the company's business dealings in Iran, insisted that the firm had not broken any laws, The New York Times reported in its Tuesday editions.

The official, Sherry Williams, a Halliburton vice president and corporate secretary, said the company had consulted several law firms in 1995 after sanctions were imposed on Iran. She said company officials determined that it was legal for independent foreign subsidiaries of U.S. companies to do business in Iran, the paper reports.

Halliburton announced recently that it had completed its outstanding contracts in Iran and was leaving the country.

Lawmakers' own portfolios had Iran investment ties

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Both sponsors of a bill that would pull Ohio's largest investment funds out of Iran hold stock in General Electric Co., whose business ties to the sanctioned nation have came under scrutiny. State Reps. Shannon Jones and Josh Mandel, both freshman Republicans, reported owning GE stock on state financial disclosure forms last year _ and both said Monday they still hold the shares. Neither said how much they own and didn't know about GE's operations in Iran until after they bought the stock.

GE and Halliburton Co. were among U.S. companies criticized for exploiting a loophole in the federal prohibition by doing business with sanctioned nations through their foreign subsidiaries. The practice has been targeted in legislation recently introduced in Congress.