IT IS six years since US-led forces, including Australia, invaded Iraq, sending the dictator Saddam Hussein scurrying from palatial power in central Baghdad to a subterranean hidey-hole and, some time later, to his brutally public death.
And it is now more than three years since Australians witnessed one of the most bizarre events of the Howard government: the spectacle of the prime minister and his senior ministers personally giving evidence to the Cole Inquiry as it tried to peel back the veil of secrecy shrouding AWB's kickbacks to Iraq.
In his final report in late 2006, Commissioner Terence Cole, QC, absolved the Howard government and its bureaucrats from any involvement in the kickbacks and instead pointed a finger of blame directly at 10 former managers of the wheat exporter, the ex-chairman Trevor Flugge, and a former BHP executive, the British-based Norman Davidson Kelly, whom he colourfully dubbed "a thoroughly disreputable man". In turn, Cole lambasted AWB for fostering "a closed culture of superiority and impregnability, of dominance and self-importance".
The seedy payments that helped AWB maintain almost unchallenged access to the Iraq wheat market for more than four years — an arrangement that AWB flatly denied for years — brought disgrace on the company and the nation.
Since 2006, all manner of politicians and corporations have been shamed and scolded over matters Iraqi: British Prime Minister Tony Blair eventually lost his job and US President George Bush was comprehensively dumped by the Obama revolution.
Yet in terms of the UN Oil For Food scandal, we are barely a centimetre or two down the extraordinarily long road to justice. Ignominy alone is not justice; individuals need either to be exonerated or punished by the courts. Companies need to explain or to compensate.
AWB has repeatedly reminded shareholders that it is paying all legal costs incurred by its former officers and directors as they defend themselves over the Iraqi scheme, regardless of which law firm they use.
The fees already total many millions of dollars, and the invoices will pour in for many years.
Here, briefly, is what lies ahead.
In Australia, several former AWB officers are still awaiting confirmation about possible criminal charges arising from their roles in engineering what amounted to a $300 million fraud on the United Nation's Oil for Food program (OFFP).
So far, no charges have been laid and the multi-agency Oil for Food taskforce, led by the Australian Federal Police and assisted by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, continues its investigations.
ASIC is also investigating breaches of the Corporations Act, and its first case — a civil penalty case against former AWB chief executive Andrew Lindberg — is due to begin on July 13, although that date may have to be pushed back if ASIC decides to appeal against a ruling by Justice Ross Robson.
Lindberg's trial in the Victorian Supreme Court will be long and complex, focusing on allegations that he breached his fiduciary duties because he knew or ought to have known about the kickbacks and that he allowed them to continue.
ASIC, however, recently lost a bid to amend its original claim so that it would cover what is probably the most obvious of fiduciary duties: the requirement that a company's most senior officer keeps the board informed.
The regulator wanted to allege Lindberg either failed to inform his fellow directors or that he gave them false and misleading information about the Iraqi payments, including what he knew about an internal investigation known as Project Rose.
For his part, Lindberg denies he read various emails in which his colleagues discussed the secret Iraqi arrangements. His lawyers have told the court that the former CEO is under enormous stress because the allegations remain unresolved.
On other fronts, AWB is preparing its defence for a $60 million class action in the Federal Court in which shareholders argue it misled the sharemarket by keeping its kickbacks secret, and that the subsequent exposure and infamy damaged AWB's share price and ultimately deprived it of the coveted, monopoly role as Australia's sole wheat exporter.
Outside Australia, however, a monster of a legal suit looms. This case was initiated a year ago in the US Southern District Court in New York where the Republic of Iraq is suing AWB and almost 100 other companies for allegedly denying the people of Iraq funds that would otherwise have come from the OFFP.
Instead of Iraq's oil proceeds being used to pay for food, medicine and other forms of humanitarian relief, AWB, along with scores of multi-national corporations, bowed to the demands of the Iraqi regime and secretly paid hard currency into Baghdad's coffers through kickbacks. It then turned to the UN and extracted reimbursement for the kickbacks by inflating invoices for the wheat it had sold to Iraq.
The case initiated by Iraq is far from straightforward. It is certain to be ferociously defended by every one of the defendants and, unless it is knocked out for technical reasons, it is guaranteed to go on for years.
Iraq's original complaint, filed in June 2008, is refreshingly simple in its prose but remarkably broad in its compass. AWB expects to receive an amended version soon. Here are some snippets from the original claim:
"While the corruption was designed and instigated by the former Hussein regime, the defendants individually decided to join the conspiracy in order to reap the economic benefits of trading under the OFFP. Without the defendants knowing participation, the former Hussein regime's corruption of the OFFP would not have been possible.
"Billions of dollars were lost, all of which was directly translatable into food, medicine and other humanitarian goods that were supposed to reach the Iraqi people. The resulting damage in human suffering caused to the Republic of Iraq and to the people of Iraq is virtually incalculable."
In all these cases, AWB will do what its shareholders might expect: vigorously defend its actions and try to buttress its reputation.
