Peter R. Harris was formerly the CEO of the UK and Ireland, Middle East and Africa division of Compass Group before being dismissed in October 2005 for "improper conduct" in relation to practices with the United Nations procurement department. Although no documentation suggests any link between Compass Group or its subsidiary Eurest Support Services (ESS) (sometimes referred to as Eurest or Eurest Support Services, or even ESS Support Services Worldwide) to the Oil-for-Food Programme scandal, Fox News in particular alleged questionable conduct by Harris.
Fox News has been the most aggressive media outlet in pursuing the alleged corruption by Compass Group.[ citation needed ] They have reproduced a number of internal ESS documents which demonstrate possible illicit behavior on the part of ESS executives, U.N. officials and brokers.
In March 2006, Compass competitor Switzerland-based Supreme Foodservices AG filed a complaint/writ in the U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York in relation to the allegations, although no additional information other than that previously published by Fox News appeared in the claim. Harris is named amongst the defendants. Another lawsuit was then filed by another Compass competitor, Es-Ko, citing specifically the possible involvement of Compass Group's CEO Michael Bailey.
Harris led ESS in a number of business deals. Among these have been contracts with BP for integrated facility management services in the Americas and the Caribbean in 2005 and with ChevronTexaco for catering and facilities management worldwide in 2002 for ten years.
Harris worked in South Africa for ten years. He met his wife there and had three children in the country. In 2004, the Compass Group South Africa website said that he planned to retire there.
Oracle Corporation is an American multinational computer technology corporation headquartered in Austin, Texas. The company was formerly headquartered in Redwood Shores, California until December 2020 when it moved its headquarters to Texas. The company sells database software and technology, cloud engineered systems, and enterprise software products—particularly its own brands of database management systems. In 2019, Oracle was the second-largest software company by revenue and market capitalization. The company also develops and builds tools for database development and systems of middle-tier software, enterprise resource planning (ERP) software, Human Capital Management (HCM) software, customer relationship management (CRM) software, and supply chain management (SCM) software.
Gulf Oil was a major global oil company from 1901 until March 15, 1985. The eighth-largest American manufacturing company in 1941 and the ninth-largest in 1979, Gulf Oil was one of the so-called Seven Sisters oil companies. Prior to its merger with Standard Oil of California, Gulf was one of the chief instruments of the Mellon family fortune; both Gulf and Mellon Financial had their headquarters in Pittsburgh.
The original incarnation of News Corporation was an American multinational mass media corporation operated and owned by media mogul Rupert Murdoch and headquartered in New York City. Prior to its split in 2013, it was the world's fourth-largest media group in terms of revenue, and News Corporation had become a media powerhouse since its inception, almost dominating the news, television, film and print industries.
SLM Corporation is a publicly traded U.S. corporation that provides consumer banking. Its nature has changed dramatically since it was set up in 1973. At first, it was a government entity that serviced federal education loans. It then became private and started offering private student loans, although at one point it had a contract to service federal loans.
Chevron Corporation is an American multinational energy corporation. One of the successor companies of Standard Oil, it is headquartered in San Ramon, California, and active in more than 180 countries. Chevron is engaged in every aspect of the oil, natural gas, including hydrocarbon exploration and production; refining, marketing and transport; chemicals manufacturing and sales; and power generation. Chevron is one of the world's largest companies; as of March 2020, it ranked fifteenth in the Fortune 500 with a yearly revenue of $146.5 billion and market valuation of $136 billion. In the 2020 Forbes Global 2000, Chevron was ranked as the 61st -largest public company in the world. It was also one of the Seven Sisters that dominated the global petroleum industry from the mid-1940s to the 1970s. Chevron is incorporated in California.
The Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland (ICAS) is the world's first professional body of Chartered Accountants (CAs). It is a regulator, educator, influencer and thought leader.
Compass Group plc is a British multinational contract foodservice company headquartered in Chertsey, England. It is the largest contract foodservice company in the world. Compass Group has operations in 45 countries and employs over 600,000 people. It serves around 5.5 billion meals a year in locations including offices and factories, schools, universities, hospitals, major sports and cultural venues, mining camps, correctional facilities and offshore oil platforms. Compass Group is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. It is also a Fortune Global 500 company.
Stephen "Scott" Helvenston was a United States Navy SEAL. He was working as a security contractor for Blackwater Security when he was killed in the 31 March 2004 Fallujah ambush within days of arriving in Iraq.
Alexander Yakovlev was a long-serving tenured member of the United Nations procurement department who was involved in the Oil-for-Food Programme scandal and had other allegations of impropriety.
Eurest Support Services (ESS) is a subsidiary of the catering company Compass Group PLC specializing in harsh-environment large-scale food service and facilities management. Its primary clients are military forces and other security services, major defense contractors, and construction, mining, and oil exploration and production facilities worldwide.
The National Legal and Policy Center(NLPC) is a right-leaning 501(c)(3) non-profit group that monitors and reports on the ethics of public officials, supporters of liberal causes, and labor unions in the United States. The Center files complaints with government agencies, legally challenges what they view as abuse and corruption, and publishes reports. The NLPC is described as conservative in nature. The NLPC's current chairman is Peter Flaherty.
Helvenston et al. v. Blackwater Security is the lawsuit for wrongful death filed by the families of the four contractors for Blackwater Security murdered in the 31 March 2004 Fallujah ambush. The families of the four men, led by Scott Helvenston's mother Katy Helvenston-Wettengel and Donna Zovko, Jerry Zovko's mother, filed suit against Blackwater with lawyer Daniel Callahan on January 5, 2005. Blackwater countersued for $10 million in December 2006, claiming breach of the contract provisions which forbid any suit against the company. In January 2011, U.S. district judge James C. Fox dismissed the suit after no progress was made in court-ordered arbitration.
Bryan G. Rudnick, President and CEO of Alliance Strategies Group, is an American political public relations consultant, specializing in online marketing and rapid-response communications. He has been active in many conservative causes.
Vringo was a technology company that became involved in the worldwide patent wars. The company won a 2012 intellectual property lawsuit against Google, in which a U.S. District Court ordered Google to pay 1.36 percent of U.S. AdWords sales. Analysts estimated Vringo's judgment against Google to be worth over $1 billion. The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit overturned the District Court's ruling on appeal in August 2014 in a split 2-1 decision, which Intellectual Asset Magazine called "the most troubling case of 2014." Vringo appealed to the United States Supreme Court. Vringo also pursued worldwide litigation against ZTE Corporation in twelve countries, including the United Kingdom, Germany, Australia, Malaysia, India, Spain, Netherlands, Romania, China, Malaysia, Brazil and the United States. The high profile nature of the intellectual property suits filed by the firm against large corporations known for anti-patent tendencies has led some commentators to refer to the firm as a patent vulture or patent troll.
Steven Donziger is an American attorney known for his legal battles with Chevron, particularly the Lago Agrio oil field case which led the company to withdraw its operations from Ecuador. Donziger is under house arrest awaiting trial on charges of contempt of court in relation to the case, a move condemned by twenty-nine Nobel laureates as "judicial harassment" by Chevron.
Triple Canopy, Inc., is an American private security company that provides integrated security, mission support and risk management services to corporate, government and nonprofit clients. The firm was founded in May 2003 by Army Special Forces veterans, including former Delta Force operators. In June 2014, the firm merged with rival security contracting firm Academi, formerly Blackwater, to form Constellis Group, with Craig Nixon, the former CEO of Academi, becoming the CEO of Constellis Group, and training facilities being consolidated at the existing Academi training facility in North Carolina. It was staffed by, among others, a number of former Army Special Operations personnel, Green Berets, Rangers, SEALs, MARSOC Critical Skills Operators, other special operations personnel, and a select few law enforcement officers. Over 5,000 employees worked for Triple Canopy at the time of the merger.
Citco, also known as the Citco Group of Companies and the Curaçao International Trust Co., is a privately owned global hedge fund administrator headquartered in the British Virgin Islands, founded in 1948. It is the world's largest hedge fund administrator, managing over $1 trillion in assets under administration.
On October 8, 2020, the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) announced the arrests of 13 men suspected of orchestrating a domestic terror plot to kidnap Gretchen Whitmer, the Governor of Michigan, and otherwise violently overthrow the state government. The suspects were tied to a paramilitary militia group that called themselves the Wolverine Watchmen, which was founded by two of the suspects. Six of the suspects were charged in federal court, while the other seven were charged with state crimes. A week later, a fourteenth suspect was arrested and charged in state court.
