The Sunday Times newspaper has revealed a phone call on 9 April last year between Paterson and the Tory peer Lord Bethell, who was the minister responsible for handing out contracts. All individuals involved in this initiative - including co-founders, advisory board members, and experts - are serving in their personal capacity. Like the extractives sector, the renewables industry requires substantial capital investments, which can come with substantial risks of . Lucia Kassai and . Furthermore, in this context, the Lebanese judiciarys decision to seize this file can be explained long after companies have been getting commissions on the import of fuel. The Public Prosecution in Mount Lebanon has triggered a heavy-caliber scandal, by arresting two dealers who were supposed to supply the Lebanese Electricity Company with Algerian fuel used in generating electricity. Instructions for the change were sent by Iulia Ispas, legal adviser to BB Energy Trading Ltd. Emails exchanged by Mossack Fonseca lawyers also point to company operations in Syria and Iraq. Hayes declared his role at the oil traders, and there is no evidence that rules have been broken. He failed on a number of occasions to declare those interests. The U.S. Treasury Department declined to respond to a request for comment. A former Conservative minister who has criticised climate change policies and joined calls to restart fracking has been paid 150,000 by an oil firm, openDemocracy can reveal. Fresh scrutiny has been applied after it was revealed former Attorney General Sir Geoffrey Cox was being paid hundreds of thousands of pounds advising the British Virgin Islands' government in a corruption investigation. BBC World Service - The Fifth Floor, Lebanon: A web of corruption Lebanon: A web of corruption As Lebanon endures worsening blackouts and fuel shortages, BBC Arabic investigates the. Offer sent. The publication was sponsored by Global Warming Policy Forum, a think tank founded by climate change denier Nigel Lawson. They have not been called to account for the 37 billion spent on a failing test and trace system. Some 22 of the biggest donors have gained a seat in the House of Lords in the past 11 years. Proceed to our online shop below to find out more about the features in each package. The instructions to the BB Naft shareholders were dated and signed in Beirut, but the agreement for the guarantee was signed by lawyers and verified by the office of the BNP Paribas bank in Marrousi, Greece. According to an undated internal PDVSA document, Indias Reliance Industries Ltd - PDVSAs largest cash-paying client was also asked by PDVSA to pay Rosneft directly in April for oil sales under a long-term supply contract with the Venezuelan company. PDVSAs contemplated payment agreement with Rosneft is part of a series of methods used by Maduros government to gain access to cash, including selling Central Bank gold reserves. An accountant for the British company All Worlds Food Ltd, Jose Da Silva, answered: I do not know the reasons why the documents were certified by a Swiss notary. After the Reuters story ran, Rosneft strongly denied the report, describing it as a blatant lie and a provocation against Rosneft. 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. 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. Photographer: Patrick T. Fallon/Bloomberg. SECURITYIn Tunis, Mawlawi reassures Saudi counterpart on Lebanons continuing fight against drug trafficking, DIPLOMACY Belgium PM tells Iranian leader to free aid worker, PRIVACY Moroccan activists join WhatsApp suit over Pegasus spyware, Support L'Orient Today with a digital subscription starting $1. He has also compared climate activists to radical Islam. For over five decades we have been applying our depth of specialist experience to oil refining, logistics, storage and financing across the world. Plus, it is still not taking any of the precautions necessary today. 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 long list of companies linked to the Cuban government or active in Cuba also includes Sanford Management Financial Ltd.; Commercial Mercadu S.A. (linked to Panamericana); Amadis Compaa Naviera S.A.; Seagull and Seafoods, S.A.; Mavis Group S.A.; Octagon Industria Ltd; Travelnet; and Venus Associates Inc., among others. How the 61-year-old embargo is blocking Cubans from finding sponsors in the U.S. The development has had mixed reactions. Could Oil and Gas Inspire Change in Lebanon. 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. The documents found in the Panama Papers are dated as far back as the early 1990s, when the Cuban economy crashed following the end of Moscows massive subsidies to the island. Finally, Sonatrach rarely markets its fuel through intermediaries, and its fuel is sold through intermediaries well-known in the market. But Cuba kept its links with some of the firms until very recently. 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 document also said that the payment by Reliance to Rosneft would also allow PDVSA to meet unspecified contractual obligations to Rosneft. The Venezuelan companys shipping schedules showed that Reliance was loading a cargo from PDVSA as recently as April 20. They escaped after senior adviser Dominic Cummings showed there was one law for the rich and another for the rest. Starmer last week called on Johnson to answer, apologise and act over sleaze allegations. Moreover, he denied any relationship with the ZR Energy trading company. The proposed payment mechanism is the latest sign of the growing proximity of Venezuelas cash-strapped government to Russia as the United States tightens a financial noose around Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, who it describes as a dictator. 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. One of the markets may have been Ecuador. The need for transparency in that case is even more pressing given the fact that the director of the Oil Installations, Sarkis Hleiss, is at the center of investigations into the fuel import scandal. It targets Tarek Fawal, who is in charge of clearing Sonatrach BVIs transactions related to receiving and unloading fuel shipments in Lebanon, and is accused of bribery, forgery and using counterfeit documents, as well as Zaouk. Word in the news: black rain Children love it, businesses hate it Pody Lui from BBC Hong Kong explains the rain warning system, and why black rain warnings are taken so seriously. But the stench of corruption was too much. 1) BB Energy Holdings N.V., Curaao Our holding company involved in global Oil & Gas trading activities and owns the below subsidiaries: BB Energy Trading Ltd., London Europe and the Mediterranean region BB Energy (Gulf) DMCC, Dubai Middle East, Arabian Gulf, Red Sea, East and South Africa, Pakistan, Western side of India and the CIS Lebanese judicial sources told Daraj that the investigation will not be limited to the technical specifications of fuel, but will also include the commissions Sonatrach is making. Stormy days are ahead for Algeria's state-owned oil company Sonatrach, currently rocked by two alleged corruption cases. Few traders had room to receive physical barrels at Cushing. 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. However, the criminal court announced his innocence to the Algeria Judicial Council, which was concerned with the ongoing investigations in the second Sonatrach case. A convoluted email by a Cuban lawyer for Tecnica Hidraulica, registered in the British Virgin Islands (BVI), showed all its shares were held by Cubas Tcnica Hidrulica, S.A. the Home Energy and Conservation Act (HECA) report in Appendix 1. It is assumed that companies will have more trust in documents certified in Switzerland than in Cuba.. The report by the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Fair Fuel for UK Motorists and UK Hauliers decries the environmental evangelism and virtue signalling of the governments plan to phase out new petrol and diesel engines by 2030. The justification of the Sonatrach executives for adopting this type of contract (Fronting), which is renewed every three years, was the position of the intermediary in the Lebanese market, in addition to his taking all the risks related to the deals. This means that the judiciary has ruled pro forma for now. In one email exchange in 2011 involving a British company representing ALIMPORT the Cuban state agency that handles food and agricultural imports, valued at nearly $2 billion in 2014 that wanted to open an account with the BBVA bank, a bank employee in Great Britain asked why documents related to Miramar Investment Corporation Ltd had been notarized in Switzerland. Such deals, however, may be authorized by the Treasury Departments Office of Foreign Assets Control or the Commerce Departments Bureau of Industry and Security. It held all the shares of Euro Foods Ltd., which was registered in the Bahamas and in turn represented ALIMPORT. BB Energy Location 12-14 Ansdell St, London, Essex, W8 5BN, United Kingdom Description Read More Industry By April 28, Mount Lebanon Public Prosecutor Ghada Aoun said 21 people had been arrested in the case, mostly employees of the Oil Installations. Tory MP Owen Paterson announced his resignation last week following revelations of his shameless lobbying for big businesses. The difference: The name of the BVI firm has no Spanish accents, the Cuban companys name does. The Covid-19 public inquiry is a historic chance to find out what really happened. We fully anticipate that the final charge will also be dismissed, he said. 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. The latter said in a televised address that he discouraged Hleiss, one of his childhood friends, from going to the court. However, Reuters was unable to independently verify if the agreement was implemented and remains in force. Riad Bassatne and his son Wael remained owners of the remaining shares. The analysis and opinions they express through LOGI are their own and do not reflect the view of their respective employers. The Web page of the Cuba-Lebanon Businessmens Council lists a Riad Bassatne as a member of its board of directors and describes him as president of BB Naft Trading and member of the board of directors of BB Energy., Wael Bassatne nevertheless insisted that there are no commercial or financial relations between BB Naft Trading S.A. and the BB Energy Group. He added that BB Nafts activities in Cuba included the sale of spare parts and agricultural machinery.. 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. The leaked documents confirm the existence of these types of foreign companies, with at least partial Cuban government capital. Ltd., in February of this year to import 2,880,000 barrels of diesel fuel. He was one of the witnesses in the pretrial investigation. We encourage anyone to comment, please consult, 43 Lords have financial interests in fossil fuel industry, How the UK helps the worlds kleptocrats and crooks deliberately, In the fight for racial justice, optimism is not enough, Staff and students in universities across the UK deserve better, The disturbing resurgence of antisemitic conspiracy theories, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence. And most trade union leaders went down the same path. Entity: B.B. 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. The subsidiary subcontracted the deal to two private companies BB Energy, owned by the Bassatne family, and, beginning in 2017, Dubai-based ZR Energy DMCC, owned by Ibrahim Zaouk. 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. BB Energy has trading hubs in the UAE, the U.K., the US, and Singapore. He also said Rahme was a friend but denied he was giving Rahme protection. . 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. 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