Wednesday 8 June What did Dick Cheney know? The US supreme court decided earlier this week that it will allow a nine-year-old lawsuit against Halliburton to proceed.

Dick Cheney: War Profiteer | By Tom Turnipseed | Common Dreams

The case isn't about Iraq, or even the Nigerian bribery scandalbut about asbestos and whether or not company management misled shareholders.

Most people assume that Halliburton made a fortune when Cheney, who had just left his previous job as secretary of defence, took over the company in But in reality, the company made a gigantic loss because of a very bad deal that Cheney made for Halliburton — by buying a company called Dresser Industries in A lawsuit filed in that year — which covers all investors who bought shares between 3 June and 7 December — alleges that Halliburton management misled investors about the potential asbestos liabilities.

A New Orleans judge ruled last year that the lawsuit couldn't proceed as a class action where a few people sue on behalf of a larger group they claim to represent unless the plaintiffs could first show that the company's alleged misstatements had inflated the company's stock price. On Monday, the supreme court overturned the earlier ruling and gave the shareholders permission to proceed. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in his statement:. We hold that they need not. Halliburton maintains that it does not believe it will have to pay out.

Further, an estimate of possible loss tradable stock options restricted stock units range of loss related to this matter cannot be made," the company said in a statement.

If the shareholders can prove that Cheney or his advisers knew about the liability and did not tell anyone, the company could be in deep trouble.

On the other hand, if they did not realise that Dresser Industries was in financial trouble, it merely suggests that Cheney was a very bad businessman.

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There is some evidence that the board was definitely not paying close attention at the time. Two how much money does dick cheney make violations took place while Cheney was the company's CEO.

The company also failed to pay out how much money does dick cheney make part of the pensions that was owed to employees who came to work at Halliburton when Cheney bought up Dresser. When the workers complained to investigators at the UD department of labour, Halliburton returned the money to the affected people and returned the money it had spent from the workers' pension funds.

But it is unlikely that Cheney will ever testify.

He has, after all, wriggled out of testifying on the Nigeria bribery scandal, and nobody has ever brought charges against him for the much-commented-on war-profiteering in Iraq. If Halliburton and its trading inverse relation between forex pairs lost money at the time, not so Cheney.

In addition, Halliburton's board of directors voted to award him early retirement when he quit his job, even though earn money distributing catalogues was too young to qualify under his contract.

That flexibility enabled him to leave with a retirement package, including stock and options, worth millions more than if he had simply resigned.

Most of it was donated to the Richard B Cheney Cardiac Institute at George Washington University.

It is unlikely that the plaintiffs in the class action lawsuit will ever get a penny back from Cheney's Halliburton now, but there are some immediate winners. I own one share of Halliburton stock; but it was purchased three years after the period that the lawsuit covers. Please choose your username under which you would like all your comments to show up.

You can only set your username once. US world UK science cities global development more. International edition switch to the UK edition switch to the US edition switch to the Australia edition. The Guardian - Back to home. It's generally assumed Halliburton profited mightily when Dick Cheney was running it.

In fact, that's wrong. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in his statement: Topics Dick Cheney Opinion. US military Iraq US supreme court Halliburton comment. Order by newest oldest recommendations.

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