French oil giant Total said yesterday it has been charged with corruption and influence-peddling relating to the United Nations' Iraqi oil-for-food programme of the 1990s.
A judge decided on February 27 to charge the company and several other defendants despite a prosecutor's request that the investigation be dropped.
Total lawyer Jean Veil told AFP the oil firm was accused of corruption, complicity in handling stolen property and influence-peddling in connection with the UN programme that ran from 1996 to 2003.
"The judge made this decision against all expectations," said Mr Veil.
Paris prosecutors in September had asked that all charges be dropped against former interior minister Charles Pasqua and Total chief executive Christophe de Margerie but said 11 other suspects should stand trial.
Among those are the former French ambassador to the United Nations, Jean-Bernard Merimée, a former diplomatic adviser to Pasqua, Bernard Guillet, and Lebanese businessman Elias Firzli, who has since died.
Launched in 1996, the $64-billion oil-for-food programme was designed to allow Iraq, then under crippling international sanctions, to sell limited quantities of oil to buy humanitarian supplies.
But the programme was plagued with mismanagement and corruption involving UN employees and more than 2,000 firms from 66 countries.
In 2002 a French investigation targeted several officials who allegedly received rights to purchase barrels of oil from former President Saddam Hussein's regime at discount prices.
Financial newspaper Les Echos reported that Total is accused of paying bribes to Iraqi officials to gain access to oil supplies sold under the UN programme that ran until 2003, when US troops invaded Iraq.
France's biggest-earning firm, Total has rejected the accusations, insisting that it acted in strict accordance with the rules of the UN programme.
Last September, the British bridge builders Mabey and Johnson were ordered to pay a fine of €3.6 million for paying bribes to Saddam's regime under the oil-for-food scheme.
In 2007, a New York court slapped a fine of $17.5 million on the Swiss oil trader Vitol for paying millions in kickbacks to Iraqi officials to win oil contracts. Vitol has also been charged in France.
A UN inquiry led by former US Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker found that the 2,200 companies involved had paid a total of $1.8 billion in kickbacks to win supply deals. Of those, 180 were French.