Australia Iraq panel to look at BHP Billiton

An Australian panel investigating allegations of oil-for-food programme kickbacks to Iraq will be allowed to include the world's largest mining group, BHP Billiton Plc/Ltd, in its inquiry, the government said.

Attorney General Philip Ruddock said in a statement released late on Monday that he had agreed to expand the scope of the inquiry after a request by the head of the panel, Supreme Court Judge Terence Cole.

The Cole commission is investigating whether Australia's monopoly wheat exporter, AWB Ltd. , and two small companies broke Australian laws in providing kickbacks to Saddam Hussein's regime through the UN oil-for-food scheme.

A 2005 UN report accused the AWB, the main exporter of food to Iraq in the 1990s, of paying up to A$222 million to Saddam's government under the now-defunct programme.

But Cole said on Friday the commission's original scope of inquiry was not broad enough to look at details surrounding a 1996 BHP grain shipment to Iraq. Financial arrangements from that shipment eventually involved the AWB.

BHP Billiton Chief Executive Chip Goodyear said has said BHP welcomes the investigation.

At issue is an A$8 million debt incurred when Iraq failed to pay for the wheat shipment. BHP Billiton said it assigned the debt to its joint venture partner, Tigris Petroleum, which in turn paid AWB A$500,000 to recover the money from Iraq.

The AWB is accused of retrieving the money by inflating wheat prices in subsequent UN oil-for-food contracts.

- REUTERS