Blackwater Agrees to Pay $42 million in Fines

Posted on Aug 21, 2010

AP / Gerry Broome

Erik Prince, who founded Blackwater, at company headquarters in Moyock, N.C., in 2008.

The company formerly known as Blackwater (now renamed Xe Services) has agreed to pay $42 million in fines, thereby avoiding criminal charges for the hundreds of alleged export violations it committed as a leading private contractor in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But it’s not the end of Blackwater’s legal troubles. Five former executives have been indicted on weapons and obstruction charges, and there’s a probe into allegations that Blackwater tried to bribe Iraqi government officials.  —JCL

The New York Times:

The violations included illegal weapons exports to Afghanistan, making unauthorized proposals to train troops in south Sudan and providing sniper training for Taiwanese police officers, according to company and government officials familiar with the deal.

The settlement, which has not yet been publicly announced, follows lengthy talks between Blackwater, now called Xe Services, and the State Department that dealt with the violations as an administrative matter, allowing the firm to avoid criminal charges. A company spokeswoman confirmed Friday that a settlement had been reached. The State Department spokesman, Philip J. Crowley, said he could not immediately comment.

... By paying fines rather than facing criminal charges on the export violations, Blackwater will be able to continue to obtain government contracts. While the company lost its largest federal contract last year to provide diplomatic security for United States Embassy personnel in Baghdad, where the Iraqi government was incensed by killings of Iraqis in one highly publicized case, it still has contracts to provide security for the State Department and the C.I.A. in Afghanistan.

Read more

More Below the Ad

New and Improved Comments

We are launching a major overhaul of our comments section.

In addition to more robust spam filtering and moderation, new features include the ability to rate other comments, sort how they are displayed and respond directly via e-mail or in a thread.

Unfortunately, commenters will lose their existing Truthdig identities. It's a pain, we know, but on the plus side you will now be able to log in with a plethora of options, including Google, Twitter, Facebook and Disqus accounts.

Before launching this system we spent months in discussion with our top commenters. We listened to the feedback and we hope you like what we've come up with.

Please direct any problems or concerns to us via our contact page.