STOCKHOLM - Truck and construction equipment maker Volvo Group admitted on Friday that its former agent in Iraq had told investigators he paid money to Saddam Hussein's regime in the UN oil-for-food scandal.
"If he says so then we have to assume that that is what happened," Volvo spokesman Maarten Wikforss told AFP, adding that the company was still investigating what exactly took place.
Volvo was one of 2,200 companies identified in a United Nations report on kickbacks paid to the Iraqi government under the oil-for-food program that ran from 1996 to 2003.
He stressed however that Volvo, which also makes buses and aircraft and boat engines, did not consider the payments as bribes.
"It was considered a tax or a charge that had to be paid in order to do business in Iraq. It was called the '10 percent system'. It was not seen as bribes," Wikforss said.
He insisted that Volvo does not condone bribery.
"We do not use bribes when it comes to business deals. That is not okay, that is not acceptable," he said.
"Alarm bells should have gone off but they didn't, since no one considered it to be bribery. But we are looking into that now," he said.
A number of other Swedish companies or their subsidiaries, including industrial group Atlas Copco Airpower and pharmaceuticals company Astra Zeneca, were also named in the UN report.
Swedish chief prosecutor Christer van der Kwast said he would examine whether a preliminary inquiry could be opened against the Swedish companies.
"We are going to look at the material and see if it is possible to begin a criminal investigation," he told Swedish Radio.
The Swedish Anti-Corruption Institute said however that it may be difficult to press charges since many of the Swedish companies used local middlemen or agents.
"It seems to be the case that the Swedish companies used middlemen, free agents and retailers. One could argue that this is something that is not illegal for the Swedish companies or their subsidiaries," the institute's deputy chairman Jan Persson told TT.
- AFP /ls