David Alec Gwyn Simon
Lord Simon, former Chairman of BP, was appointed Minister for European Trade and Competition by Tony Blair in May 1997. When he was appointed Minister he resigned from directorships at Grand Metropolitan, Deutsche Bank, Rio Tinto Zinc (RTZ) and Allianz AG Holding. He put his shares in all these companies into a 'blind trust', except for BP, selling their shares for £2.25 million. He went to Cambridge University. He left the Cabinet in July 1999, frustrated with the slow pace of Britain's advance towards a single European currency.
At BP he was the boss of Bryan Sanderson, who sits on the Government's Competitiveness Advisory Group Task Force, the Company Law Review Steering Group and the Enhancing Business Performance Task Force. 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, Director and General Manager of BP Exploration, sits on the Oil and Gas Industry Task Force. 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.
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 also have staff working inside the DTI.
In September 1999 a subsidiary of BP-Amoco had to pay $22 million in fines and compensation after admitting it illegally disposed of hazardous waste in Alaska.
In 1996 a Colombian Government report revealed that BP had been collaborating with death squads in Colombia. Campaigners against BP were abducted by the military and murdered. BP passed photographs of Trades Unionists and peasant activists to the Colombian Military and used the army to break strikes (BP spends millions funding the Colombian army - in 1998 they gave them an extra £39 million). The Colombian Government's independent ombudsman José Castro Caycedo carried out an inquiry into BP's environmental record between 1991 and 1997. His report was a devastating catalogue of pollution, illegal deforestation, water contamination and the dumping of untreated toxic waste. In 1994 BP received the biggest fine in Colombian history for serious environmental damage at five oil rigs.
In 1993 BP were accused of backing a coup in the former Soviet State of Azerbaijan, which installed a ruthless ex-KGB man as President. President Haydar Aliyev then proceded to sign a £5 billion deal which gave BP the lead role in a consortium of Western companies which now dominates the oil business in the region. A secret Turkish intelligence report accused BP of organising an 'arms-for-oil' deal with Azerbaijan, providing weapons and mercenaries to the new President.
Lord Simon was Chairman of BP throughout this time.
