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Lord Browne forced to resign as chief executive of BP oil corporation
*** Lord Browne, the Jewish billionaire who runs the UK's privatised state oil industry, has been forced to resign after being caught lying in court. Browne denied being gay while under oath, but this was later found to be untrue. He also said "I deny categorically any allegations of improper conduct relating to BP." (Further information about Browne and the track-record of the BP oil corporation before and during his tenure is provided further down on this page.) ***
BP chief executive Browne resigns
The chief executive of oil giant BP, Lord Browne of Madingley, has resigned from his post with immediate effect.
Lord Browne said he had stepped down to save BP from embarrassment after a newspaper won a court battle to print details of his private life.
He also apologised that statements he had made in legal documents about a four-year relationship with Jeff Chevalier had been "untruthful".
Lord Browne had planned to step down from the company in July.
He will be replaced by his nominated successor Tony Hayward.
As a result of the decision, Lord Browne will lose at least £3.5m of his retirement package - and possibly a further £12m, BP said in a statement.
BP said it had accepted Lord Browne's resignation with "deepest regret".
'Private life'
"In my 41 years with BP I have kept my private life separate from my business life. I have always regarded my sexuality as a personal matter, to be kept private," Lord Browne said in a statement.
"It is a matter of deep disappointment that a newspaper group has now decided that allegations about my personal life should be made public."
He confirmed that he did have a relationship with Mr Chevalier who had now decided to tell his story to Associated Newspapers - owners of the Mail on Sunday.
However, he added: "These allegations are full of misleading and erroneous claims. In particular, I deny categorically any allegations of improper conduct relating to BP."
Lord Browne went to the House of Lords to try to win permission to appeal against earlier rulings which followed private hearings in the High Court and the Court of Appeal that would allow some details to be published.
The outgoing boss said that he had initially lied to the court about the circumstances in which he had met Mr Chevalier, because of "embarrassment and shock" at the revelations.
High Court judge, Lord Justice Eady said that he was not allowed to make allowances for the "white lie" told by Lord Browne.
Under fire
BBC Business Editor Robert Peston called the resignation a "sad end to what was, until recently, a distinguished career".
He added that there probably were bigger blows to Lord Browne's reputation, such as an explosion at the Texas refinery that killed BP workers and led to stinging criticism of the firm.
Lord Browne had been at the helm of the company for more than a decade, however in recent months he had come under fire over the company's safety culture and his huge retirement package.
He had been due to leave BP with a £5.3m pay-off in July and a £21.7m pension, as well as millions of pounds in shares due under the incentive plan - a move many investors opposed.
Because of his decision to leave the firm early he will forfeit a significant chunk of those earnings.
BP chairman Peter Sutherland said that a review into allegations that company assets and resources had been abused were "unfounded or insubstantive".
"It is a tragedy that he should be compelled by his sense of honour to resign in these painful circumstances," he added.
The Mail on Sunday said that it was Lord Browne who had "made his private life a public issue" by lying in court.
"We would like to reiterate that the story we originally sought to publish was a business story involving issues of great importance to shareholders and employers of BP," the paper said.
Shares in BP barely moved on news of Lord Browne's resignation.
Analysts said that this was largely because the outgoing boss was already on his way out and that his successor was ready to step straight into the top job.
SOURCES
BBC News, "BP chief executive Browne resigns", 1 May 2007.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6612703.stm
FURTHER READING
BBC News, "BP manager criticises leadership", 18 December 2006.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6189919.stm
An executive of energy giant BP has criticised the firm's management during an internal meeting, leaked documents have revealed.
Head of exploration Tony Hayward made the comments at a town hall meeting in Houston, BP confirmed to the BBC.
Mr Hayward said leadership does not listen enough to what "the bottom" says and that safety needed more work.
The remarks, put on the intranet by staff, comes with BP in the firing line over recent incidents affecting safety.
A blast in March 2005 at BP's Texas City refinery near Houston killed 15 people and injured 180.
And in the past year it had to close half its Alaskan oil field due to severe corrosion along its pipeline there.
[In western capitalism, moral concerns such as the safety of working-class employees and the preservation of natural enviroments and ecosystems are actually low value, low priority issues. because spending money in these areas yields no substantial financial benefits, so there is no incentive for the ruling elite. In fact, spending too much money in these areas can actually reduce profit margins for major investors and company executives.]
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BBC News, "BP investors back Browne payout", 12 April 2007.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6547813.stm
BP investors have approved a pay report which includes its outgoing chairman in a three-year incentive scheme.
Lord Browne will leave BP with a £5.3m pay-off in July and a £21.7m pension, as well as millions of pounds in shares due under the incentive plan.
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Labour leadership contender Michael Meacher was also among those calling on BP shareholders to try to block Lord Browne's payoff which he described as "grotesque".
"We need to end the situation where City bosses set each other's rewards," he said.
...
BP has suffered problems in recent years including oil spills in Alaska and an explosion at one of the firm's US refineries in 2005 in which 15 people died.
BBC News, "BP 'is to blame for Texas blast'", 20 March 2007.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6471787.stm
British oil giant BP has been heavily criticised by US safety investigators over a refinery disaster that killed 15 workers in 2005.
According to the draft report from the US Chemical Safety Board, the blast was the result of lax safety culture at BP.
The report also said that the agency in charge of spotting safety problems had failed to see warning signs.
BP's Texas City plant south of Houston was hit by a fatal explosion in 2005, which also injured 180 people.
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According to the draft report, a number of factors contributed to the explosion including cost-cutting, worker fatigue, and a failure by the whole of BP's management to address safety issues.
Carolyn Merritt, chairman of the Chemical Safety Board (CSB), has said that the board had been "absolutely terrified" by the poor safety culture at the refinery.
On Tuesday, she added that programmes designed to protect staff and the public "deserve the same level of attention, investment, and scrutiny as companies now dedicate to maintaining their financial controls".
"The combination of cost-cutting, production pressures and failure to invest caused a progressive deterioration of safety at the refinery," Ms Merritt said.
The CSB also singled out the US federal work safety watchdog, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, for criticism.
"Rules already on the books would likely have prevented the tragedy in Texas City," Ms Merritt said.
"But if a company is not following those rules, it is ultimately the responsibility of the federal government to enforce good safety practices before more lives are lost."
Ms Merritt told Radio 4's The World Tonight that investigators had begun to suspect much wider safety problems at BP soon after starting their inquiry in 2005.
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Radio Islam, "Blair's Jewish paymasters", 2006
http://www.radioislam.org/islam/english/jewishp/britain/paymast.htm
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Sir John Browne, Chairman of BP, sits on the Government's Competitiveness Council, alongside Sir Richard Evans of BAE Systems and C.K. Chow of GKN.
BP have paid for employees to work in the British Embassy in Washington and on the Foreign Office's Middle East Desk in London. They also have staff working inside the DTI.
In September 1999 a subsidiary of BP-Amoco had to pay $22 million in fines and compensation after admitting it illegally disposed of hazardous waste in Alaska.
In 1996 a Colombian Government report revealed that BP had been collaborating with death squads in Colombia. Campaigners against BP were abducted by the military and murdered. BP passed photographs of Trades Unionists and peasant activists to the Colombian Military and used the army to break strikes (BP spends millions funding the Colombian army - in 1998 they gave them an extra £39 million).
The Colombian Government's independent ombudsman José Castro Caycedo carried out an inquiry into BP's environmental record between 1991 and 1997. His report was a devastating catalogue of pollution, illegal deforestation, water contamination and the dumping of untreated toxic waste. In 1994 BP received the biggest fine in Colombian history for serious environmental damage at five oil rigs.
In 1993 BP were accused of backing a coup in the former Soviet State of Azerbaijan, which installed a ruthless ex-KGB man as President. President Haydar Aliyev then proceded to sign a £5 billion deal which gave BP the lead role in a consortium of Western companies which now dominates the oil business in the region. A secret Turkish intelligence report accused BP of organising an 'arms-for-oil' deal with Azerbaijan, providing weapons and mercenaries to the new President.
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BBC News, "Profile: Lord Browne", 1 May 2007.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/5212824.stm
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Lord Browne continued to drive record profits at BP, becoming one of the best-paid UK executives. His annual remuneration was £5.7m in 2004.
In addition to the top job at BP, Lord Browne holds a number of non-executive directorships at firms including Intel and Goldman Sachs.
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Daily Mail, "Why is BP forcing Browne out?", 13 October 2006.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/columnists/columnists.html?in_article_id=410289&in_page_id=1772&in_author_id=365
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Eleven years ago, when Browne became chief executive, BP was drifting. Its culture was like that of a government department, which was not surprising as it used to be one. [BP's staff still includes government employees. And some government departments are also partly staffed by BP eemployeed. Like the US regime, the British regime is closely involved with the oil industry, and also the arms industry -- interests which neatly overlap in Iraq and Afghanistan.]
Lady Thatcher privatised it in the 1980s, but in 1995 BP was still a mid-sized oil company, dependent on the dwindling wells of the North Sea. Under Lord Browne’s guidance it became the second largest oil company in the world, employing 95,000 people and recording annual profits of more than £10 billion.
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BBC News, "'Perjury' threat for ex-BP boss", 2 May 2007.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6614291.stm
Former BP chief Lord John Browne may now face charges of perjury amid allegations that he lied to a court about a gay partner, reports say.
Lord Browne quit on Tuesday after the Mail on Sunday won a court battle to print details of his private life.
He also apologised that legal statements he made about a relationship with Jeff Chevalier were "untruthful".
The newspaper said it would be handing its "evidence" against him to the Attorney General for investigation.
[The Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, the wealthy Jewish lawyer who controls the department responsible for all official prosecutions in the UK, is a friend of Lord Browne, so there will be no prosecution.]
However, the judge in the High Court case said that he would not be referring the matter as he believed that disclosure in the judgement of Lord Browne's behaviour was "probably sufficient punishment".
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NNDB, "John Browne", 2007.
http://www.nndb.com/people/454/000045319/
Father: Edmund Browne (British Army officer, d. 1980, diabetes)
Mother: Paula Wesz Browne (b. Hungary, d. 2000, 1/4th Jewish, 2-year Auschwitz survivor)
"The Insider" mailing list article, 02 May 2007.
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