Nigeria drops bribery charges against Dick Cheney

Nigeria will drop bribery charges against Dick Cheney and Halliburton after the energy firm agreed to pay up to $250 million in fines.

GlobalPost reported a week ago that Halliburton was planning to make a plea bargain in the case.

The charges stem from a case involving millions allegedly paid in bribes to Nigerian officials by Halliburton and other firms to win a contract to build a $6 billion liquefied natural gas plant in Nigeria's oil-rich southern delta.

The move reportedly followed the intervention of the former president George H.W. Bush and the former secretary of state James Baker, according to press reports.

Nigeria's Economic and Financial Crimes Commission this month charged Cheney — the former U.S. vice-president, who ran Halliburton in the 1990s — and nine others with "conspiracy and distribution of gratification to public officials."

Houston-based engineering firm KBR, a former Halliburton unit, pleaded guilty last year to U.S. charges that it paid $180 million in bribes between 1994 and 2004 to Nigerian officials to secure $6 billion in contract

The Texas engineering firm KBR, a former unit of Halliburton, pleaded guilty in 2009 to U.S. charges that it paid $180 million in bribes between 1994 and 2004 to Nigerian officials for the contracts for the Bonny Island liquefied natural gas project in the Nigeria delta. KBR and Halliburton reached a $579 million settlement in the U.S., but Nigeria conducted its own investigations into the case.