News about the Cayman Islands in the Foreign Press

Friday,  July 22, 2005

Iraq contracts lawsuit involving Cayman shell companies allowed to go ahead

WASHINGTON, USA – The Washington Post reports that a US District Court judge has given the nod to a lawsuit by a whistleblower alleging fraud in the awarding of contracts in Iraq. Two former employees had sued Fairfax security firm Custer Battles LLC over the company’s work on two contracts in Iraq.

One contract was to provide security to Baghdad International Airport and another was for helping move new currency around the country. The workers claimed the company used shell companies in the Cayman Islands and elsewhere to submit phony bills to the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority.

Cayman Islands benefit from money flowing out of Africa

MELBOURNE, Australia – According to The Age, if all the money given to African countries since 1960 combined with all the money made by Africans since 1960 — from growing crops, trading goods, pumping oil and the like — had been invested and reinvested in African economies growing at compounded rates of 3 to 4 per cent a year, Africa would not be poor in 2005.

Raymond Baker has studied the flow of money out of Africa and other poor nations. He estimates that, each year, perhaps as much as $500 billion flows from poor economies to other global money centres.

New York, London, Geneva, Tokyo, Hong Kong and others profit from cash flowing out of risky environments and seeking solid returns in safer investment climates. Money launderers and tax havens such as the Cayman Islands also benefit from money flowing out of Africa, mostly illegally.

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