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Halliburton Shorts Pension Plans

You've probably heard of Halliburton, the infamous corporation once headed by United States Vice Pres. Dick Cheney. In recent years, Halliburton has been accused of overcharging billions to U. S. taxpayers for services it provides to the troops in Iraq. Also, Halliburton was automatically awarded multi-billion dollar government contracts for both Iraq and the post-Katrina Gulf Coast without having to compete with other companies. Clearly, it pays to know the right people.

Now, a federal investigation of Halliburton's pension plans has discovered serious violations of pension law. Among the illegal actions, Halliburton was found to have charged the workers' pension plan for some of the cost of running the company's executive pension and bonus plans.

The Labor Department said that these actions broke pension laws that bar self-dealing and use of pension money for corporate expenses. Halliburton will now have to pay a fine of $8.6 million for failure to handle pension money with "care, skill, prudence and diligence."

Let's hope our public pension plans are managed better than Halliburton's.

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