Bryan Sanderson
Bryan K. Sanderson is the Chairman of the private health company BUPA. He is the former Managing Director of Chemicals at BP International, paid £987,000 in 1998. He sat on the Government's Competitiveness Advisory Group Task Force, the Company Law Review Steering Group and the Enhancing Business Performance Task Force. He was appointed to the Industrial Development Advisory Board in February 2000 (the Board advises Government ministers on applications by companies for large assistance grants). He is a member of the Labour Party, one of Tony Blair's 'three wise men' who advised on new competition policy in January 1997, paving the way for his former boss, Lord Simon, to be appointed Minister for European Trade and Competition by Blair in May 1997.
No other company has more members on Government Task Forces. Rodney Chase (paid £962,000 in 1998) BP Managing Director of Exploration, sits on the Advisory Committee for Business and the Environment (alongside Dr John Harford of BP Solar) and the UK Round Table on Sustainable Development. David Watson, BP's Group Treasurer, sits on the Working Party on Sustainable Development. Alan Jones, former Regional President of BP Amoco Scotland, sat on the first Oil and Gas Industry Task Force. His replacement Steve Marshall sits on OGITF 2. BP Amoco makes £28.8 million every day.
Sir John Browne, Chairman of BP, sits on the Government's Competitiveness Council, alongside Sir Richard Evans of BAE Systems and C.K. Chow of GKN. In 1996 he was paid £2.4 million (£1.7 million in share incentives) plus benefits including a car and driver, and in 1998 he was paid £1,514,000. He went to Cambridge University and the Stanford Graduate School of Business in the USA.
BP have paid for employees to work in the British Embassy in Washington and on the Foreign Office's Middle East Desk in London. They have also had staff working inside the DTI and the Treasury (during the period that Gordon Brown eased the tax requirement on oil companies) and Terry Kirchin of BP working in the Scottish Office. Byron Grote, Chief of Staff at BP was drafted in to carry out a review of public-sector efficiency alongside Peter Gershon in 1998.
Bryan Sanderson sits on the board of Sunderland AFC alongside Robert Murray.
BP rebranded itself in 2000 as a caring environmental company, announcing a £250 million investment in renewable energy. However, this pales into comparison with its spending on oil and gas, including £67 billion to buy Amoco and £16 billion to buy ARCO, both in 1999. The company also spent £3 billion to buy Burmah Castrol and £600 million on a stake in PetroChina, both in 2000. BP has seen an opportunity to cash in on the CO2 emission limits set by the Kyoto Summit on Global Warming. By switching its emphasis towards gas (which emits half as much CO2 in power stations as coal) and funding an expensive green PR campaign it is passing itself off as environmentally progressive whilst continuing to expand its profits.
In September 1999 a subsidiary of BP-Amoco had to pay $22 million in fines and compensation after admitting it illegal
