This Monday, March 14, 2011, Orange displays a conquering face. Stéphane Richard, its new manager, has embarked on an ambitious international development plan and announces his next destination: Iraq. In this country still shaken by two decades of war, the incumbent French operator has chosen to invest in one of the three local players, Korek Telecom. It is in the minority at this stage, but is already planning to take control of the Iraqi company in the future, while increasing its turnover.
A decade later, the results are catastrophic. In 2019, the Iraqi regulator expropriated him from his shares in the company, on the pretext of insufficient investment. The operator disputes this, and has since tried to obtain compensation via various international procedures, in particular from the World Bank. The fact remains that he has already had to leave the country after having spent more than 430 million dollars (about 380 million euros) there.
But the bankruptcy of Orange in this case is not only financial. Corruption, tax evasion, troubled links with the Islamic State organization… Korek Telecom has multiplied breaches of the law and ethics since its creation in the early 2000s, and at least until 2019 – a period which includes that at which Orange was present in its capital. Could the French operator ignore it when it set foot in the Iraqi quagmire?
The troubled activities of Korek Telecom
The troubled activities of Korek Telecom have been highlighted by the international survey “the Ericsson List”. the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), of which The world is a partner, received three internal reports from Swedish telecom giant Ericsson from an anonymous source. One of them looks at his many excesses in Iraq. However, the name of Korek Telecom appears there many times.
At the head of the company, we find Sirwan Barzani. The latter is not only a boss of a telecom company like the others: a member of the powerful Barzani clan, in power in Iraqi Kurdistan, a cousin of Prime Minister Masrour Barzani, he is also the commander of a unit of Kurdish peshmerga forces.
The internal investigation at Ericsson has highlighted several dubious practices by the Swedish equipment manufacturer to obtain the favors of Korek Telecom, its biggest customer in Iraq, and its leaders. It is in particular question of a cash donation of 50,000 dollars in 2014. This sum was officially intended for a foundation of assistance to the displaced, but doubts exist on its real recipient. Another curiosity: the hiring in 2007 of another member of the clan, Rasech Barzani, as a consultant, with a salary of up to 18,500 dollars excluding bonuses, but without a clear attribution.
You have 61.43% of this article left to read. The following is for subscribers only.