Profits before health

A British chemical company admitted million-dollar bribes to officials to sell toxic fuel additives to Iraq. The Octel(now called Innospec) chemical works near Ellesmere Port, Merseyside exported tonnes of tetra ethyl lead (TEL) to Iraq. TEL is banned from cars in western countries because of links with brain damage to children. Iraq is believed to be the only country that still adds lead to petrol.

The company admitted that, in a deliberate policy to maximise profits, executives from Octel – which since changed its name to Innospec – bribed officials in Iraq and Indonesia with millions of dollars to carry on using TEL, despite its health hazards.
The firm agreed to pay relatively small corporate fines of $40m (£26.7m). It said the matter was a "deeply regrettable chapter of our history" The leniency of the corporate plea bargain caused protests from Lord Justice Thomas this year at one of the corporate sentencing hearings in London. He said "No such arrangement should be made again." The company allegedly handed out $26m in dividends when it knew it was under investigation, according to the US department of justice.

A decade ago, Octel decided to remain the world's only manufacturer of TEL for cars, after it was banned in the US and Europe. They used high profits from non-western countries to diversify into other products and to pay back investors, mainly US hedge funds run by Connecticut billionaire Jeffrey Gendell. According to prosecutors, the strategy included the corrupt blocking of health campaigns.In Iraq, bribes were paid in 2007 to sabotage field trials of MMT, a non-lead alternative additive. In Indonesia, money was poured into a "defence of lead" campaign to pay off local politicians. The phase-out of TEL was successfully delayed for five years.One Octel executive wrote: "As you are aware, Indonesia was planning to go lead free in 2000 … this obviously did not happen for a number of reasons and since 1 January 2000 until the present, we have supplied 28,390 tons of TEL … generating $277 million in revenue."