Clinton, General Electric, Algeria and Money

As Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton boast about being the most traveled of any U.S. diplomat, landing her plane in 112 countries. Hillary held 1700 meetings with world leaders and had 755 meetings at the White House. Her travels included dancing in none other than Columbia, Malawi and South Africa.

In October of 2012, Hillary traveled to Bosnia Herzegovina, Serbia, Kosovo, Albania, Croatia and Algeria. Perhaps it was quite telling as of this writing, interesting deals were made in Algeria, a country full of corruption led by President Bouteflika.

It should be noted that on October 19 of 2012, meetings were held in Washington DC where the topics were bilateral and regional concerns as well as economic and security cooperation under the title of U.S.-Algeria Strategic Dialogue. There was also a United Nations Security Council resolution authorizing West African States to perform a military intervention to remove the Islamist rebels from North Mali.

Two years earlier, The Clinton Foundation received $500,000 from Algeria without approval from the State Department ethic office or legal counsel. Algeria alleges the money was earmarked for the relief efforts in Haiti. At the same time, Hillary tells the public relations team her objectives with Algeria was to address human rights issues as well as to nurture the relationships between the United States and Algeria.

Of particular note, in 2010, Algeria also spent more than $400,000 in lobbying the U.S. government officials as specified by records under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, while sending representatives more than a dozen times to the United States to visit top political and diplomatic operatives.

Reports have been often published where the U.S. State Department have found that Algeria lacks any transparency, has a history of random killings and widespread corruption. Hillary even notes the facts of Algeria being a failed state in her book, “Hard Choices”.

Algerian security forces also benefit from U.S. cooperation programs. Obama Administration officials have stated a desire to deepen and broaden bilateral ties, including in the aftermath of a four-day terrorist hostage seizure at a natural gas compound in southeastern Algeria in January 2013, in which three Americans were killed. The attack highlighted the challenges the United States faces in advancing and protecting its interests in an increasingly volatile region.

The terrorist group that seized the hostages is a breakaway faction of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), a regional network and U.S.-designated Foreign Terrorist Organization with roots in Algeria’s 1990s civil conflict. Given Algeria’s large military and available financial resources, U.S. officials have expressed support for Algerian efforts to marshal a regional response to terrorist threats. Yet Algeria’s relations with neighboring states are complex and sometimes distrustful, at times hindering cooperation. Meanwhile, any U.S. unilateral action in response to regional security threats could present significant risks and opportunity costs. Algeria’s macroeconomic position is strong due to high global oil and gas prices, which have allowed it to amass large foreign reserves. Yet wealth has not necessarily trickled down, and the pressures of unemployment, high food prices, and housing shortages weigh on many families. Public unrest over political and economic grievances has at times been evident, though other factors may have dampened enthusiasm for dramatic political change.

Algeria’s foreign policy has often conflicted with that of the United States. Strains in ties with neighboring Morocco continue, due to the unresolved status of the Western Sahara and a rivalry for regional influence. The legacy of Algeria’s anti-colonial struggle contributes to Algerian leaders’ desire to prevent direct foreign intervention, their residual skepticism of French and NATO intentions, and their positions on regional affairs, including a non-interventionist stance toward the uprising in Syria and an ambivalent approach to external military intervention in neighboring Mali.

 

When it comes to Algeria’s economic status, both the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organization have assumed unusual positive forecasts on Algeria. The U.S, State Department in 2012 declared that Algeria has stabilized and all efforts were underway to enhanced the U.S./Algeria Trade Investment Framework Agreement (TIFA). This bring to light a company called Sonatrach, which exploits hydrocarbons for global consumption under research and development.

From the State Department’s website, Algeria concluded commercial agreements with several U.S. companies including Northrup Grumman and General Electric. The number of foreign trade missions to Algeria reportedly grew from 30 in 2010 to 60 in 2012, illustrating the increased focus and competition in the local market. In 2012, Algeria concluded commercial agreements with several Arab and European nations. U.S. firms, such as Northrop Grumman and General Electric won multi-million dollar tenders. President Abdelaziz Bouteflika appointed former Minister of Water Resources, Abdelmalek Sellal, as the new Prime Minister. Sellal is trusted by the political elite and viewed as a pragmatic politician who seeks new economic partnerships to tackle long-standing issues, such as housing shortages and unemployment. Algerian leadership remains focused on building domestic production capacity and reducing imports and seeks U.S. expertise and partnership. Minister of Commerce Mustapha Benbada visited the United States in December 2012 for discussions with the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative related to Algeria’s World Trade Organization (WTO) accession and cooperation under the U.S.-Algeria Trade and Investment Framework Agreement (TIFA).

 

General Electric continues to court Algeria in partnerships and joint ventures in 2015. Sonatrach is a company rocked by constant scandal including fraud suspicions and prison terms, in fact the country itself is ranked 105th out of 176 in fraud.  The national hydrocarbon group Sonatrach and the American company General Electric (GE) signed Thursday in Algiers a memorandum of understanding on the creation of a joint company for the manufacturing of equipment used in oil and gas industry. This new unit, of which Sonatrach will hold 51% stake through the oil services holding (SPP) while 49% will be held by GE, will be set up in the form of a joint stock company. This unit will manufacture and develop, among others, equipment of drilling and production, equipment for measurement and supervision as well as provision for services and trainings relating to oil fields.

General Electric CEO, Jeffrey Immelt stated on April 22, 2015, he refused to turn over emails between himself and Hillary Clinton or those exchanged with the State Department. Immelt was also brought into the Obama administration as the ‘Job Czar’ and tendered his support for Obamacare while transferring his GE X-ray division to China to avoid the Obamacare taxes applied to medical devices. Immelt does need to provide evidence of the collusion especially when he authorized GE to contribute up to $1.0 million dollars to the Clinton Health Access Initiative.

Numerous sources, including the Wall Street Journal and the New Yorker, have recently reported that, while Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton lobbied foreign governments on behalf of companies including General Electric at a time when those companies were making donations to the Clinton Foundation. In late 2012, for example, Clinton urged the Algerian government to award a power plant contract to GE. GE contributed to the Clinton Foundation. Then in 2013, Algeria awarded the power plant contract to GE.

By donating to the Clinton Foundation while receiving a huge favor from the Secretary of State, did we not expose our company to the risk of being charged with honest services fraud? I am not accusing the company of any wrongdoing. But you have to admit that the optics suggest a quid pro quo could have occurred, and a public official pushing a foreign government to buy a company’s products while that company makes a generous donation to that public official’s family- run foundation appears to fit even the more limited definitions.

Since Mrs. Clinton had control of her business emails during this time and has said she deleted many of them, GE presumably is the only entity with evidence that everything was above board. To prevent the company from being the focus of any media or public investigation, would you consider making public all the Company’s written communications with the State Department during the relevant period?

Hillary Clinton Foundation and Uranium

Primer:

The Russian reset via Hillary appears to be uranium and Putin’s control of the same. Reminder, Russia sells uranium to ahem….Iran.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=rA-vSIIyz9I#t=51

Sheesh, almost by the hour news breaks on the Clinton Foundations(s) where fraud and collusion are bubbling to the surface.

Last week Newsweek broke a story about InterPipe owned by Victor Pinchuk of Ukraine whose financial worth is estimated at $4.2 billion. He is quite close to the Clintons and generous with his money to their Foundations in exchange for policy decisions at the State Department. As an aside, Pinchuk is tied to Tony Blair, Paul Krugman, Shimon Perez, Dominique Strauss Khan, Larry Summers and well yes, even Elton John.

When it comes to Hillary’s run for the Oval Office, these actions may be coming out too soon given election day in November of 2016, but this could all be a good thing as money going into her campaign may slow to a crawl. It should also be noted that the Gowdy Benghazi Commission reports are not slated to be published either until the height of the election season in 2016.

Now let us move on to uranium and Hillary.

Gifts to Hillary Clinton’s Family Charity Are Scrutinized in Wake of Book

State Department sat on panel that approved sale of mine involving contributor to foundation

Hillary Clinton’s State Department was part of a panel that approved the sale of one of America’s largest uranium mines at the same time a foundation controlled by the seller’s chairman was making donations to a Clinton family charity, records reviewed by The Wall Street Journal show.

The $610 million sale of 51% of Uranium One to a unit of Rosatom, Russia’s state nuclear agency, was approved in 2010 by a U.S. federal committee that assesses the security implications of foreign investments. The State Department, which Mrs. Clinton then ran, is one of its members.

Between 2008 and 2012, the Clinton Giustra Sustainable Growth Initiative, a project of the Clinton Foundation, received $2.35 million from the Fernwood Foundation, a family charity run by Ian Telfer, chairman of Uranium One before its sale, according to Canada Revenue Agency records.

The donations were first reported in “Clinton Cash,” a new book by Peter Schweizer, an editor-at-large at a conservative news website, about the financial dealings of Mrs. Clinton and former President Bill Clinton. A copy of the book, set to be released next month, was reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. The book is to be published by HarperCollins, a division of News Corp. NWSA 0.23 % , which also publishes the Journal.

The book adds fresh details to previous reporting by the Journal and others about potential conflicts between Mrs. Clinton’s private charitable work and her public activities as secretary of state. The Journal reported in February that at least 60 companies that lobbied the State Department during her tenure donated a total of more than $26 million to the Clinton Foundation.

Josh Schwerin, a campaign spokesman for Mrs. Clinton, the front-runner for Democratic presidential nomination, said the Uranium One sale “went through the usual process, and the official responsible for managing CFIUS reviews has stated that the secretary did not intervene with him. This book is twisting previously known facts into absurd conspiracy theories.”

The campaign on Wednesday also provided a comment from Jose Fernandez, a former assistant secretary of state who served as the department’s principal representative on the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, or CFIUS, which reviewed the sale. “Secretary Clinton never intervened with me on any CFIUS matter,” Mr. Fernandez said.

In response to past questions about possible conflicts, Mrs. Clinton has said she is proud of the foundation’s work. Earlier this week, she called the book a distraction from real campaign issues.

Mr. Telfer, in an interview Wednesday, said he made the contributions not for the sake of the Clintons, but to support his longtime business partner, Frank Giustra, a Canadian mining executive and longtime Clinton friend who co-founded the program to spur development in poor countries.

“The donations started before there was any idea of this takeover,” Mr. Telfer said. “And I can’t imagine Hillary Clinton would have been aware of this donation to this growth initiative,” he added.

The Fernwood contributions don’t appear on the Clinton Foundation website, as was required under an agreement between the foundation and the Obama administration. A Clinton Foundation spokesman referred questions to the Clinton-Giustra program spokeswoman in Canada, who didn’t respond.

Under the terms of the sale, the company said it wouldn’t seek an export license to send uranium out of the country, and that executives at the U.S.-based unit would control the mine, according to a Nuclear Regulatory Commission report. Uranium One, now a fully owned subsidiary of the Russian nuclear agency, owns a 300,000-acre mine in Wyoming and could produce up to half of the U.S. output of uranium this year. Some members of Congress at the time wrote to the committee calling on it to block the sale.

The Journal confirmed some other instances detailed in the book about Mrs. Clinton’s official activities and her family charity.

In June 2009, the Clinton Giustra initiative received two million shares in Polo Resources, POL 1.33 % a mining investment company headed by Stephen Dattels, a Canadian businessman, according to a Polo Resources news release. About two months later, the U.S. ambassador to Bangladesh pushed the energy adviser to that nation’s prime minister to allow “open pit mining,” including in Phulbari Mines, where Polo Resources has a stake, according to a State Department cable released by WikiLeaks. The company seeking to develop the mine is still waiting for government approval, according to the firm’s website.

It isn’t known whether the Clinton-Giustra program still owns the shares. Neither Mr. Dattels nor his foundation nor Polo Resources are listed as donors by the Clinton Foundation website. Mr. Dattels, who retired in 2013, and representatives for Polo Resources couldn’t be reached for comment.

Irish billionaire Denis O’Brien, who heads a mobile-phone network provider called Digicel, won a $2.5 million award in 2011 from a program run by the State Department’s U.S. Agency for International Development to offer mobile money services in post-earthquake Haiti. The firm won subsequent awards. Funds for the awards were provided by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, while USAID administered the program, with a top Clinton aide directly overseeing earthquake aid.

Mr. O’Brien has given between $5 million and $10 million to the Clinton Foundation since its launch. It is unclear whether Mr. O’Brien gave while Mrs. Clinton was at the State Department because of the way the foundation discloses its donations.

A USAID spokesman said the company met the criteria laid out in the Haiti Mobile Money Initiative. A spokesman for Mr. O’Brien said he couldn’t be reached and declined to comment. The Clinton campaign didn’t respond to request for comment on Polo Resources or Mr. O’Brien.

Write to Rebecca Ballhaus at [email protected] and Peter Nicholas at [email protected]

It is Iran Stupid…

A partial list of where Iran has their proxies: Venezuela, Argentina, Nicaragua, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, Iraq, Afghanistan…..there is more. Armed tribes and there is no dispute, Iran has a financial network in the United States giving validation to the notion that Iran is the country where the global terror banking system resides.

 

The White House, the National Security Council, the State Department, the U.S. Treasury, the FBI and ODNI as well as the CIA all have tangible proof of the machinations of Iran, yet still the diplomatic process continues with impunity.

Iran’s increasingly active involvement in the region’s proxy wars increases domestic separatist terrorism risk

Key Points

  • Although protests by Ahwazi Arabs are fairly routine, the participation of sympathisers from other Arab states indicates the potential for ethnic and religiously motivated unrest and insurgency to evolve.
  • Ahwazi Arab militants in Khuzestan and Jaish al-Adl militants in Sistan-Baluchistan province have increasingly positioned their separatist narratives in the context of the regional Iran-Saudi conflict, indicating their receptiveness to external support, potentially from Iran’s regional rival Saudi Arabia.
  • Although IHS has no evidence of current Saudi involvement, Saudi support for these groups is a likely retaliatory option, in the event of perceived Iranian dominance in Yemen, Syria, and Iraq, but this would likely be limited to funding and non-attributable low-capability weaponry. A sustained and high capability insurgency is unlikely in the one-year outlook.

EVENT

Hundreds of Ahwazi Arabs, along with Syrian, Iraqi, Palestinian, Lebanese, and Yemeni sympathisers, gathered on 17 April outside the European Parliament in Brussels to protest Iran’s “occupation of al-Ahwaz” in the country’s Khuzestan province.

Iran’s perceived successes in the Sunni-Shia regional conflict make it more likely that Iranian-backed groups will challenge Saudi Arabia’s regional authority, and increase the pressure on the Kingdom to confront Iran more directly. However, regardless of whether Saudi Arabia is backing insurgent groups in Iran, any such attack or protest by regional-based groups are likely to be attributed by Iran’s government to Saudi Arabia, not least as a way of deflecting relevance from domestic opposition.

Ahwazi Arabs

Iran has accused Saudi Arabia of supporting Ahwazi Arab militants based in the oil-rich Khuzestan province, southwest Iran, although this claim has not been substantiated, and nor has Iran specified the extent of such support. The Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahwaz (ASMLA) has carried out a series of successful attacks on Iran’s oil and gas pipelines using improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in Khuzestan, with the most recent wave of such attacks occurring in 2012 and 2013. Although the long remote stretches of pipelines are potential targets for further IEDs, Iran has since enhanced pipeline security and there have been no successful attacks reported since 2013. The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) foiled a bomb plot on the Abadan-Mahashahr oil pipeline in November 2013, which the IRGC later claimed was by the ASMLA.

The ASMLA is likely to be receptive to external support from Iran’s opponents, principally Saudi Arabia. Indeed, the presence of Syrian, Iraqi, Lebanese, and Yemeni sympathisers at the 17 April Ahwazi protest rally held in Brussels indicates the group’s increasing alignment with those disaffected by Iran’s influence in those countries’ internal conflicts. Although Ahwazi Arabs are overwhelmingly Shia, the ASMLA dedicated the August 2013 attack on a gas pipeline to their Syrian ‘brothers-in-arms’, positioning the group’s agenda against Iran as part of the larger regional conflict. Moreover, the head of the ASMLA met with Mohammad Riad al-Shaqfeh, head of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, in September 2012, indicating their potential co-operation. Nevertheless, the extent of Ahwazi Arab support for the ASMLA and militancy is unclear. Despite having economic grievances, Ahwazi Arabs sided with Iran during the Iran-Iraq war (1980-1988).

Jaish al-Adl

IHS monitoring of Jaish al-Adl’s social media accounts shows that the group is increasingly reaching out to an Arabic-speaking audience, probably to secure funding from Gulf donors. It released a video purportedly showing the 6 April attack in Negur, Sistan-Baluchistan province, in which eight Iranian border guards were killed. The video included Arabic subtitles. Publishing videos of successful attacks is used by some Syrian militant groups to secure donor funding. Jaish al-Adl’s social media accounts also increasingly report on regional conflicts, particularly Yemen, marking a shift in its rhetoric from an exclusively Baluchi nationalist one to one that positions itself within the regional Sunni-Shia conflict.

Although there is no evidence to prove existing Saudi support for Jaish al-Adl, if this did occur it would most likely be through Pakistan, where the group’s core leadership is based and which has a history of support for the group. The Iran-Pakistan border is porous and the group can move across the border with relative ease. For its part, Pakistan’s unwillingness or inability to supply weaponry or forces to the Saudi-led military campaign in Yemen might well create pressure on Pakistan to facilitate Saudi support for Jaish al-Adl in Iran, however even this might well prove problematic, given Pakistan’s interest in securing gas from Iran via a planned pipeline.

Kurds

Kurdish separatists have traditionally been active in their homeland of Iran’s northwestern provinces of Kurdistan, Kermanshah, and West Azerbaijan, but there has been little recent activity by its main group, Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan (Partiya Jiyana Azada Kurdistane: PJAK). However, at least one faction of PJAK is likely to have been radicalised after Iran ignored the group’s call for negotiations in May 2014. A possible indication of such radicalisation was an alleged plot by ‘Islamist extremists’ to blow up a mosque in January 2015 in Mahabad, West Azerbaijan province, which Iranian authorities claimed to have foiled. The Iranian deputy interior minister Hossein Zolfaqari also claimed in March 2015 that Iran’s security forces have also dismantled several Islamic State-affiliated cells in the past year. The Islamic State has separately claimed to have Iranian Kurds among its recruits, although IHS has no evidence to substantiate this claim. Even if there is an appeal for Islamic State-inspired militancy in these provinces, Iran’s pervasive intelligence network is likely to mitigate risks of successful attacks. Meanwhile, as with Jaish al-Adl, it is quite probable that Iran will attribute alleged Islamist militancy amongst Iranian Kurds to external, principally Saudi, involvement, particularly in the event of fatalities amongst Iranian security forces or civilians.

FORECAST

Although Saudi Arabia has some incentive to provide limited support to opposition or insurgent/militant groups in Iran in the context of its regional proxy war with Iran, such support is likely to be confined to funding and non-attributable light weaponry. Even if this option were adopted, Iran’s transit routes are heavily guarded by the IRGC, and arms shipments through the Iraqi border or the Gulf coast would very likely be intercepted. Transfers of weaponry would be easier across the porous Pakistan border, but even then, Jaish al-Adl has not demonstrated the capability to move beyond the border area, much less transfer weaponry to Khuzestan. However, regardless of whether Saudi support is forthcoming, Iran would probably attribute blame to Saudi or other Gulf actors in the event of an increase in the frequency or capability of attacks in its peripheral provinces, which would also exacerbate the state of hostility between the two countries.

Is the White House Forcing the Pentagon to Lie?

Islamic State is in Libya, Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan. Militias standing with Islamic State have infested all of North Africa and Yemen. Analyzing the threat matrix takes a fleet of analysts, lawyers, policy and intelligence people to make any quality estimates however, it is dynamic, changing each week.

One other detail, while it was a few months ago that several Gulf States including the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia listed the Muslim Brotherhood as a terror organization, the Kingdom has twisted that definition and is working with the Brotherhood in Yemen….stay tuned.

 

Exclusive: Pentagon Map Hides ISIS Gains,” by Tim Mak,

April 22, 2015:

The U.S. military presented evidence that it was beating back the so-called Islamic State but it doesn’t even count coalition setbacks.

The Defense Department released a map last week showing territory where it is has pushed ISIS back, claiming that the terrorist group is “no longer able to operate freely in roughly 25 to 30 percent of populated areas of Iraqi territory where it once could.” This was touted as evidence of success by numerous news outlets.

Pushing ISIS back is clearly a good step. But the information from the Pentagon is, at best, misleading and incomplete, experts in the region and people on the ground tell The Daily Beast. They said the map misinforms the public about how effective the U.S.-led effort to beat back ISIS has actually been. The map released by the Pentagon excludes inconvenient facts in some parts, and obscures them in others.

The Pentagon’s map assessing the so-called Islamic State’s strength has only two categories: territory held by ISIS currently, and territory lost by ISIS since coalition airstrikes began in August 2014. The category that would illustrate American setbacks—where ISIS has actually gained territory since the coalition effort began—is not included….

The map also shows areas where ISIS is “dominant,” as opposed to the terrorist group’s operational reach—the areas where it can inflict violence….

“ISIL’s own doctrine says it must gain and hold territory. This map shows they are not achieving their stated goals,” Pentagon spokesman Colonel Steven Warren told The Daily Beast, using the government’s preferred acronym for the terror group.

But Warren seemed to acknowledge that the map isn’t entirely accurate.

The document “was not meant to be a detailed tactical map—it is simply a graphic used to explain the overall situation,” he said.

The entire battlefield of the ISIS war isn’t depicted, however. For some reason, the Pentagon’s ISIS map excludes the entire western side of Syria—which, coincidentally or not, is an area where ISIS has gained a significant foothold since the U.S.-led bombing effort began last year.

Western Syria is also an area dominated by the Syrian regime, led by President Bashar al-Assad. The United States has insisted that Assad must leave office, but has not elucidated a clear strategy for how to compel this to occur.

Jennifer Cafarella, a fellow specializing in Syria at the Institute for the Study of War, said that while the map, as presented, looked accurate, she would “highlight that the map doesn’t extend to include western Syria, where there is growing ISIS presence… the map cuts off, essentially ignoring ISIS in the Syrian-Lebanese border region and Damascus.”

ISIS gains in the area excluded from the Pentagon’s map should be noted, Cafarella continued, because “they are a forward investment for ISIS that will create long-term opportunities for further expansion into zones in which coalition airstrikes are unlikely, at least in the near term, to penetrate..”

Since airstrikes began in August, ISIS has also shown its force on the northeastern suburbs of Damascus, near Qabun. More recently, ISIS made international news through a violent takeover of the area surrounding a Palestinian refugee camp called Yarmouk, which U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has described as “the deepest circle of hell.”…

A Coming Showdown Europe vs. Russia?

Ukraine is the gateway for energy pipelines feeding Europe with fuel sources controlled by Gazprom. Given the aggressive moves by Putin in Ukraine, the Baltic States and eventually the rest of Europe, it appears that Europe has found corruption.

European Commission – Fact Sheet

Antitrust: Commission sends Statement of Objections to Gazprom – Factsheet

22 April 2015

The European Commission has sent a Statement of Objections to Gazprom alleging that some of its business practices in Central and Eastern European gas supply segment the EU’s Single Market and constitute an abuse of its dominant market position in breach of EU antitrust rules.

Gazprom is the dominant gas supplier in a number of Central and Eastern European countries. It has a market share well above 50% and in some cases up to 100% in these markets. In light of its antitrust investigation, the Commission’s preliminary view is that Gazprom is hindering competition in the gas supply markets in eight Central and Eastern European Member States (Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Slovakia).

 

The Commission’s preliminary conclusions in the Statement of Objections

On the basis of its investigation, the Commission’s preliminary view is that Gazprom is breaking EU antitrust rules by pursuing an overall strategy to partition Central and Eastern European gas markets with the aim of maintaining an unfair pricing policy in several of those Member States. Gazprom implements this strategy by:(i) hindering cross-border gas sales,(ii) charging unfair prices, and (iii) making gas supplies conditional on obtaining unrelated commitments from wholesalers concerning gas transport infrastructure.

1. Gazprom might be hindering cross-border gas sales

Gazprom has included a number of territorial restrictions in its supply agreements with wholesalers preventing the export of gas in eight EU Member States (Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Slovakia). These clauses include:

  • export ban clauses – provisions that explicitly prohibit the export of gas;
  • destination clauses – provisions that stipulate that the customer (wholesaler or industrial customer) must use the purchased gas in its own country or can only sell it to certain customers within its country; and
  • other measures that prevent the cross-border flow of gas, such as requesting wholesalers to obtain Gazprom’s approval for exports or refusing to change the location to which the gas should be delivered under certain circumstances.

The Commission’s preliminary view is that Gazprom is using these territorial restrictions to prevent gas from flowing freely between and to the eight Central and Eastern European countries. As a result these Member States do not have access to imported gas at potentially more competitive prices.

Territorial restrictions have a negative impact on gas prices preventing cross-border flows of gas and leading to market partitioning. In particular, they hinder gas from flowing where it is most needed and where prices are commercially most attractive.

Wholesale gas prices across the Central and Eastern European Member States can differ significantly. If gas prices in one country are higher than in another, then the wholesaler in the low price Member State should be able to sell surplus gas that it does not need to meet its domestic consumption to a market where prices are higher. Territorial restrictions prevent such price arbitrage. As a result of these restrictions, wholesalers cannot compete with Gazprom, in other words, Russian gas cannot compete with Russian gas. This leads to higher prices and gas markets that are segmented along national borders.

The Commission has already made clear in past decisions that territorial restrictions and measures to partition the market are anticompetitive:

  • In 2004, the Commission adopted two decisions, regarding contracts concluded by GDF (Gaz de France) with Italian companies ENI and ENEL, confirming that territorial restriction clauses in the gas sector restrict competition. The territorial restriction clauses prohibited ENI and ENEL from selling in France the natural gas which GDF transported on their behalf. The clauses therefore prevented French consumers from obtaining their supplies from the two Italian operators and hindered competition in the market.
  • In 2009, the Commission fined EDF and E.ON under Article 101 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) not to sell gas transported over the MEGAL pipeline in each other’s home markets.

The Commission also has an ongoing antitrust case concerning territorial restrictions in the electricity sector in Bulgaria against Bulgarian Energy Holding (BEH), which may have limited purchasers’ freedom to choose where to resell the electricity bought from BEH. The Commission sent a Statement of Objections to BEH in March 2015.

2. Gazprom’s alleged unfair pricing policy

The Commission’s investigation concerns the prices that Gazprom’s customers such as gas wholesalers and industrial customers pay for their gas. These wholesale prices play an important role in determining the prices for gas charged at retail level to households and businesses. They can also impact the prices of industrial goods for which energy costs are an important factor in the production costs.

Generally, Gazprom pegs the price of the natural gas it sells to a number of oil products (so-called “oil indexation”). The Commission is investigating whether, and to what extent, the individual price levels in a country are unfair and how Gazprom’s specific price formulae based on oil indexation have contributed to the unfairness. The Commission does not consider that indexing a product’s price to oil products or any other product is in itself illegal. It also does not take issue with the fact that gas prices are different in different countries. Competitive conditions may vary in Member States, such as the importance of gas as an energy source in a country’s “energy mix”.

In order to assess whether individual price levels in a country are unfair, the different Member State prices were compared to a number of different benchmarks, such as Gazprom’s costs, prices in different geographic markets or market prices. On the basis of this analysis, the Commission has come to the preliminary conclusion in its Statement of Objections that the specific price formulae, as applied in Gazprom’s contracts with its customers, have contributed to the unfairness of Gazprom’s prices: Gazprom’s specific price formulae which link the price of gas to the price of oil products seem to have largely favoured Gazprom over its customers.

The Commission’s preliminary conclusion, as outlined in the Statement of Objections, is that Gazprom has charged unfair prices in five Central and Eastern European countries (Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland).

3. Concerns on gas transport infrastructure

The Commission has concerns that Gazprom leveraged its market dominance in Bulgaria and Poland by making gas supplies conditional upon obtaining certain infrastructure-related commitments from wholesalers.

In Bulgaria, the Commission’s preliminary view is that Gazprom made wholesale gas supplies conditional upon the participation of the Bulgarian gas incumbent wholesaler in a large-scale infrastructure project of Gazprom (the South Stream pipeline project) despite high costs and an uncertain economic outlook.

In Poland, the Commission’s preliminary view is that Gazprom made gas supplies conditional upon maintaining Gazprom’s control over investment decisions concerning one of Poland’s key transit pipelines (Yamal). This pipeline is one of the main infrastructures that could allow gas from suppliers – other than Gazprom – to enter the Polish market.

Procedural background on antitrust investigations

Article 102 TFEU prohibits the abuse of a dominant position which may affect trade and prevent or restrict competition. The implementation of these provisions is defined in the Antitrust Regulation (Council Regulation No 1/2003), which can be applied by the Commission and by the national competition authorities of EU Member States.

A Statement of Objections is a formal step in Commission investigations into suspected violations of EU antitrust rules. The Commission informs the parties concerned in writing of the objections raised against them. The addressees can examine the documents in the Commission’s investigation file, reply in writing and request an oral hearing to present their comments on the case before representatives of the Commission and national competition authorities. The Commission takes a final decision only after the parties have exercised their rights of defence.

There is no legal deadline for the Commission to complete antitrust inquiries into anticompetitive conduct. The duration of an antitrust investigation depends on a number of factors, including the complexity of the case, the extent to which the undertaking concerned cooperates with the Commission and the exercise of the rights of defence.