The 2006 Australian
AWB Oil-for-Food Kickback
Controversy

Nine newspaper clippings. See complete list below.

This is a little complicated, so pay attention. AWB (formerly the Australian Wheat Board) is the only company legally authorized to export Australian wheat. For decades, one of its customers was the Government of Iraq. The company was flagged in the 2005 Volcker investigation of the United Nations Oil-for-Food scandal as possibly having been involved in kickbacks to the Saddam Hussein regime. This precipitated an Australian Government investigation called the Cole Inquiry. In December 2005, with the Cole Inquiry about to start, AWB sought my advice. AWB has given me permission to say that much, but details of the consultation are (as usual) confidential.

What isn’t confidential (anymore) is a “Draft Statement of Contrition” drawn up by AWB management after our consultation. It was never used. But someone at AWB erroneously included it in a pile of materials provided to the Cole Inquiry staff. In March 2006 there was some testimony about it, and it was projected for a few minutes during an Inquiry session. Then it was suppressed pending a months-long legal argument over whether the draft was privileged (as AWB attorneys argued) or public (as the Inquiry staff argued). A spate of Australian news stories speculated about the “explosive” but secret document by an American “crisis manager” or “PR guru” or “spinmeister” that urged a “strategy of contrition” described by one AWB official as “over-apologizing.” Finally in May 2006 the Australian courts ruled that the document was public, and it was published, along with another flurry of articles.

Please note that not everything in these articles is correct. Some articles say I drafted the document; I didn’t. Some articles say the document admits AWB knowingly paid kickbacks; it doesn’t. Only one publication, the Australian Financial Review, actually spent some time finding out what sort of advice I typically give my clients. (Of course it didn’t help that I wouldn’t tell reporters anything about my work with AWB.)

Seven more or less typical stories are linked below, plus the March Australian Financial Review profile (Adobe Acrobat (pdf) file, 327 kB, located on this site) and the text of the draft contrition statement (located off this site).

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