State prosecutors are dragging their feet investigating corruption in the Iraq oil-for-food programme, according to one of the authors of last year’s United Nations report on one of the world’s largest bribery scandals.
Mark Pieth, a Switzerland-based lawyer who wrote the report with Paul Volcker, former chairman of the US Federal Reserve, told the Financial Times that prosecutors in many countries were too career-minded, too unwilling to enter new legal terrain “and sometimes simply lazy”.
In spite of high-profile investigations in Australia, France and elsewhere, few cases have led to charges being laid in the 13 months since the report was published. Mr Pieth said he was “astonished” the report’s conclusions had not led to organisational changes in the UN, which was accused of mishandling the oil-for-food programme.
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