ExxonMobil worked with a company connected to a senior Conservative party figure to transfer an oil asset in Liberia despite “concern over issues regarding US anti-corruption laws”, the Guardian can reveal.
Documents seen by the Guardian show that ExxonMobil proposed a complex financial arrangement to move the rights to a Liberian oil block through two financial transactions on the same day, after concerns were raised about the original allocation of the rights.
Under the arrangement, a company called Peppercoast sold rights in a west African oil block to a company called Canadian Overseas Petroleum Limited (COPL). Viscount Astor, the father-in-law of David Cameron, the former prime minister, is a director of COPL, which is registered in Bermuda. […]
