'Illegal' trade with Cuba costs Scottish oil firm PSL £82,500 US fine
Campaign News | Thursday, 24 May 2007
from The Scotsman
PSL Energy Services, the Scottish oil company rescued from receivership four years ago but sold to US industry heavyweight Halliburton for more than £100 million last month, has been fined £82,500 for breaching a United States ban on conducting business with Cuba. According to the US treasury department, Aberdeen-based PSL admitted that its subsidiary in Texas illegally exported oil field servicing equipment to the Caribbean island nation between April and September 2004.
Companies in the US are prohibited from dealing with Cuba under the terms of a 45-year-old trade embargo, designed to undermine the communist regime of the island's ailing president, Fidel Castro.
"PSL voluntarily disclosed that it may have violated the Cuban Assets Control Regulations by engaging in the unlicensed exportation and re- exportation of oilfield servicing equipment and related skilled services to Cuba," the US treasury's office of foreign assets control said in a statement that announced the $164,006 penalty.
Doug Duguid, he chief executive of PSL, said the company had no comment about the fine.
The Scottish firm was founded in 2003. It employs almost 1,000 people worldwide in energy operations, including the servicing and fitting or oil rigs, with around 530 based in the group's home city.
http://business.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=805152007
