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The Institute for Ethics and Economic
Policy (IEEP)
Fordham University is a renowned
Jesuit institution with over 165-year history of emphasis on ethics.
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To
promote Governance with Respect Ethics Accountability and Transparency
(GREAT)
NORWAY
Join a
Discussion site, where you can click on “New Topic.”
Transparency
International’s corruption
rank for this country in 2000=6, corruption perception index =9.1
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EMBATTLED STATOIL
CHIEF STEPS DOWN Following the departure of chairman Leif Terje Loddesoel at
the weekend Olav Fjell, chief executive of Norway’s
Statoil has resigned when police probed into a $16m package of incentives
paid to consultants linked to Iran
in the state-owned oil firm. Norwegian police suspect the incentives were
effectively bribes, aimed at winning contracts in Iran.
(BBC, 24 Sep 2003,
summarized by Hanh Vu).
Veidekke faces
corruption investigation
It was reported that the National Authority for Investigation and Prosecution
of Economic and Environmental Crime in Norway is cooperating with the US
Department of Justice in a major corruption case. The root of the problem is
a payment of 10,000 dollars from a now defunct subsidiary of Veidekke.
According to newspaper Development Today, the money went straight into the London
account of Uganda’s
former energy minister, Richard Kaijuka. The company discovered the
unauthorized transaction and the person who made the payment is no longer
with the Veidekke, and the subsidiary involved has been closed. The incident
led to Kaijuka being given the choice of voluntarily resigning or being fired
from his new post as director in the World Bank.(Often Posten News, September
12, 2002 summary by Sherldine Tomlinson).
MAN CONVICTED OF DEFRAUDING UNICEF Haavald Heide Schjerven was convicted of
corruption in an Oslo court,
sentenced to a 5-1/2 year prison term, and ordered to pay $1.6 million in
compensation for his part in accepting the bribes of cash and cars in
exchange for awarding contracts. The
former head of UNICEF’s Water and Sanitation section (1989-1996) has denied
allegation of serious irregularities in the department finances. Hans Petter Frisvold, co-defendant and
former manager and chairman of Petron AS,
was convicted to assisting in the fraud and received a 2-year prison term for
bribing Schjerven with about $100,000 in return for receiving $3.1 million in
contracts. Both men were accused of
creating false companies to submit bids, and both are considering appealing
the court ruling. (NYT (AP), Jan.
28, 2002, summary by Marg Reynolds).
The Index of Economic Freedom
(by Driscoll-Holmes-Kirkpatrick) for 2001 places Norway in the “Mostly Free” category with a rank
of 38 (Ranks range from 1 for Hong Kong to 155 for North Korea, Wall Street Journal,
Nov. 1, 2000). H. D. Vinod’s trimmed correlation analysis indicates that
countries free from economic regulation are less corrupt. After allowing for
some exceptions by 20% trimming, the correlation is near 0.9.
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